In Brazil, the protection of personal data is becoming a fundamental and constitutional right

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Authoritarian tendencies are on the rise, so much so that the Economist Intelligence Unit recently stated that democracy, and with it our freedom, is being eroded year by year.

Especially in recent times, when covid lockdowns, measures, and passports had almost become the new normal in many countries and the EU is planning to introduce a digital ID card, it is important to take countermeasures in good time so that our freedoms are not completely taken away by digitalization. Step by step.

Brazil’s National Congress on Thursday (10) in a solemn session approved the constitutional amendment that makes the protection of personal data, including in digital media, a fundamental right.

The issue had been before Congress since 2019. It originated in the Senate, where it was approved, and went to the House of Representatives for analysis, where it underwent amendments and returned for reconsideration by the Senate, which happened at the end of October last year.

The President of Congress, Senator Rodrigo Pacheco (PSD-MG), highlighted the adaptation of Brazilian legislation to the new era in which information is spreading digitally at a very high pace. In this scenario, he stressed the need to protect people’s privacy.

“The new constitutional requirement strengthens the freedom of Brazilians because it is enshrined in our Constitution to protect the privacy of citizens. The data, the personal information, belongs by right to the individual and to no one else,” he said.

“He and only he, the individual, has the power to decide to whom and under what circumstances this data can be disclosed, except for very well-defined legal exceptions, as in the case of criminal investigations carried out with due legal process,” Pacheco added.

Data protection is now enshrined in the Constitution as a permanent clause, which means it cannot be changed. Fundamental rights are considered values inherent in human beings, such as their freedom and dignity.

The fundamental rights guaranteed in the Constitution include freedom of expression, freedom of belief, and inviolability of privacy, private life, honor, and reputation.

The amendment adopted today incorporates the principles of the General Law on Personal Data Protection (LGPD) into the text of the Constitution.

The LGPD regulates the processing of personal data in any medium, including digital media, by natural or legal persons under public or private law, in order to protect the privacy of individuals.

When the law was passed by the House of Representatives, lawmakers added a provision to the text that gives the Union the authority to organize and supervise the protection and processing of personal data, as provided for in the law. The text already included the provision on the Union’s private competence to legislate in this area.

“We defend rights that used to be absolute, the right to intimacy, to privacy. This Internet world is turning against us. Now we are victims of crime, now we are victims of the market,” added Senator Simone Tebet (MDB-MS), rapporteur for the proposal in the Senate, during the first adoption of the text by the Parliament.