The institutions of PUI: who is who
Behind the Single Identity Platform are four Mexican state institutions, each with a precise role. Knowing what each one does —who sets the policy, who safeguards identity, who searches for people and who provides the technical support— avoids confusion and lets you direct each matter to the right authority. This is the clear guide to the PUI bodies.
Four institutions, four roles
PUI is not run by a single agency, but by a coordinated set. The Ministry of the Interior (SEGOB) leads the search policy; the National Population Registry (RENAPO) administers people’s identity; the National Search Commission (CNB) leads the location of missing persons; and the Digital Transformation and Telecommunications Agency (ATDT) provides the technical support for the interconnection.
This division has a logic: searching for people is a security and human-rights function that falls to SEGOB and its Commission; identity is a civil and population record administered by RENAPO; and the platform that connects everything needs a technical layer, provided by the ATDT. For a lodging, understanding this serves a concrete purpose: directing each procedure, question or request to the institution that actually handles it.
Below is a description of each institution and its function within PUI, taking care not to attribute to any of them powers that are not theirs.
The four institutions of PUI
The role of each body within the platform, without mixing powers.
SEGOB
The Ministry of the Interior leads the missing-persons search policy and coordinates the bodies that operate the platform. It is the institutional head of the scheme.
RENAPO
The National Population Registry administers people’s identity and is the basis of the CURP. It provides the platform’s identity component.
National Search Commission (CNB)
A SEGOB body that leads the search for missing persons. In practice, it is the one that frames the queries to lodgings.
ATDT
The Digital Transformation and Telecommunications Agency provides the technical support for the interconnection: the digital layer that lets the system work.
How they coordinate
SEGOB defines and coordinates; RENAPO provides identity; the CNB searches; the ATDT connects. Each matter goes to the right body.
Common basis
They all act within the framework of the LGMDFP, whose purpose is to locate people reported missing.
SEGOB and the National Search Commission
The Ministry of the Interior is the agency that conducts the country’s missing-persons search policy. Within its structure operates the National Search Commission, the specialized body that leads the location of missing persons. The relationship is one of membership: the CNB is part of SEGOB’s framework and carries out the search function.
For a lodging, the CNB is the most relevant face in the day-to-day of the query model, because it is the body that needs to ask whether a reported person checked in at any establishment. SEGOB, for its part, is the authority that coordinates the whole and sets the policy that frames the entire scheme.
RENAPO and the ATDT
The National Population Registry is the institution that administers people’s identity in Mexico and the basis of the CURP. In the PUI context, RENAPO provides the identity component: the reference against which a person is unambiguously recognized. It is not a search authority, but a registry of population identity.
The Digital Transformation and Telecommunications Agency provides the technical support for the interconnection. It is the layer that lets the system operate: the digital component that connects the actors. Distinguishing these functions avoids a common error, which is to assume that “the platform” is a single box; in reality it is the coordinated sum of these four institutions.
Official sources
Institutions referenced: Ministry of the Interior (SEGOB); National Population Registry (RENAPO); National Search Commission (CNB); Digital Transformation and Telecommunications Agency (ATDT). Regulatory framework: General Law on the Forced Disappearance of Persons (LGMDFP), Art. 12 Bis (obligation) and Art. 43 Bis (penalty).
Reference publications in the Federal Official Gazette (DOF): LGMDFP reform in July 2025; Guidelines on 27 November 2025; Technical Manual v1.0 on 23 January 2026; SNIP Operations Manual, pending publication as of June 2026.