Brazil’s data privacy law misunderstood and misused by government

Brazil’s General Data Protection Law (LGPD) passed in 2018 and came into force two years later. And last month, companies and governments became susceptible to fines for data privacy transgressions for the first time. Following the molds of European regulations, the law was set to alter the paradigm of how data is treated in Brazil. But the reality has been less rosy, with 40 percent of firms still completely unprepared to comply with the new rules — and the government making use of the law for nefarious purposes.

According to a survey by Fiquem Sabendo, a non-profit organization advocating for freedom of information in Brazil, the Jair Bolsonaro administration has used the LGPD as an excuse to withhold public data on at least 79 occasions up until July 10 of this year. In one-third of these instances, the government used the LGPD as a shield even before the law came into effect in 2020.

The president’s Institutional Security Office (GSI), for instance, has resorted to the LGPD to hide visitation logs in the Planalto and Alvorada palaces — where the president works and lives, respectively.

In one such information request, the applicant asked for dates and times that Jair Renan Bolsonaro — the president’s youngest son — visited the Planalto Palace. Another plea denied based on the LGPD also concerned the visits of Mr. Bolsonaro’s sons, this time his three eldest: Senator Flávio, Congressman Eduardo,...