Commentary: Brazilian Cybercrime Law Project

Controversial measures criticized over the Internet

The law project regarding cybercrimes was approved in July at Brazil's Senate, and now depends on the approval in the Chamber of Deputies of the country. The law project redaction, however, has been the target of some criticism in terms of coverage on what is considered crime and more controversial issues involving the privacy of users and the confidentiality of their information. Somehow, that is something that is happening simutaneously in almost every place in the world: countries are starting to feel the necessity of trying to create specific laws to regulate digital content; users are not happy with the situation


By GABRIELA ZAGO
from Pelotas, BRAZIL


Imagine how it would be if, everytime you wanted to leave home, a camera would be following you wherever you went, registering all your steps, recording everything that you saw or said, and that information would then be saved and stored for a period of time of three years. Then, if you committed any crime in that period, there wouldn't be necessary to do much thing in order to prove it - police would need only to access those data, and then punishment would be fast and rightly.

Does it seem absurd? But something like that is planned in one of the articles of a Law Project which is in vote in the National Congress in Brazil, regarding Internet access (an English version of the project can be accessed here). If the Project becomes Law, Internet providers would have to keep data on users' connections for a period of time of 3 years. Moreover, ISPs would be required to report to Justice any suspiction that a user might be about to commit a cybercrime. The problem - besides requiring absurd technical and economic capacity to store all this data - is that it violates some basic principles of the Constitution of the country - like the presumption of innocence. According to Reporters Without Borders, "This bill is potentially dangerous for online free expression", since it "reinforces surveillance of the Internet and provides for penalties of up to three years in prison without any precision as to how they should be applied".

The law project regarding cybercrimes was approved in July at Brazil's Senate, and now depends on the approval in the Chamber of Deputies of the country. The law project redaction, however, has been the target of some criticism in terms of coverage on what is considered crime and more controversial issues involving the privacy of users and the confidentiality of their information. Somehow, that is something that is happening simutaneously in almost every place in the world: countries are starting to feel the necessity of trying to create specific laws to regulate digital content; users are not happy with the situation.

The reaction against the law project in Brazil is led by Brazilian intellectuals. The project is being largely discussed over the Internet, by bloggers, professors, researchers, and Internet users of the country. Blogs, microblogs, social networking sites and other Internet tools are being used to protest against the bill. There is also a petition, started by three Brazilian researchers on social media, Sérgio Amadeu, André Lemos and Joăo Caribé, that has got, so far, over 97,500 signatures. A campaign against the project was started at Sérgio Amadeu's weblog, conclaiming everyone to "Say NO to senator Azeredo project".

The cybercrimes law project is not all bad. It provides, among other things, severe punishment against paedophilia. But most of the articles are controversial. Other questionable points of the bill are the very open expressions (which can lead to broad interpretations in the courts), and the very specific classification of crimes, as the crime of larceny by electronic fraud.

Do the laws that already exist would not be sufficient to cover the Internet crimes? Do we really need to create new laws to combat crimes committed in certain types of media? Or the crime base remains the same, regardless of the medium used to practice it? - In other words, is it really necessary to create laws specifically for internet crimes, or maybe those crimes are just like the ones that happens outside the internet, but practiced in a different support?


(Published: 10.08.2008.)