Methodology
19 May 2026
What Cauta shows you
Cauta is an informational map that helps travelers understand neighborhood-level safety patterns in Mexico City. The city is divided into 847 small areas — called cuadrantes, the same units used by local police — and each one is colored from very low (green) to very high (deep red) risk. Tap any area to see a short safety brief written specifically for it.
Where the data comes from
Our risk scores are built from publicly available crime statistics from the Secretaría de Seguridad Ciudadana de la Ciudad de México (SSP CDMX), the city's public safety authority. The data is aggregated at the cuadrante level and covers reported incidents over recent months. We combine these counts with population estimates to produce normalized rates. We do not use private data, surveillance feeds, or third-party tracking.
How the risk score is calculated
Each area receives a 0–100 score that blends recent incident frequency, severity (violent vs. non-violent), and how fresh the data is. We then group the 847 areas into five bands — very low, low, medium, high, and very high — to make the map easier to read. The score is a relative ranking across the city: a 70 in one area means the recent picture there has been notably worse than in lower-scored areas, not that something is guaranteed to happen.
What "Recent trend" means
Each neighborhood brief includes a trend indicator: improving, stable, or worsening. This compares the most recent reporting period to the period before it. For areas with very little data, we show "insufficient data" instead — a small number of incidents can swing a percentage dramatically without meaning much.
What the AI insights are
The neighborhood briefs you see on the map are generated by an AI model (Claude, by Anthropic) using the same public crime data as the risk score. We've designed the prompts to be conservative and practical — closer in tone to a thoughtful guidebook than to a news headline. The model summarizes what's in the data and offers general practical tips. It doesn't predict crime, doesn't name individuals, and doesn't make specific claims about specific streets unless those streets appear in the underlying data.
What we don't do
We do not predict the future. We do not track individual users or share location data. We do not claim our scores replace local advice, official channels, or your own judgment. We do not partner with law enforcement or any FIFA event organization. Cauta is informational only and is not a substitute for emergency services — in an emergency in Mexico, call 911.
How often data is updated
Source data is refreshed on a regular schedule and the displayed scores update accordingly. Each area card shows when its underlying data was last refreshed.