Tech Roundup: Brazil has a new cybersecurity policy

Welcome to our Tech Roundup, where we bring you the biggest stories in technology and innovation in Brazil and Latin America. This week: Brazil has just formed a new cybersecurity committee, led by the military-run Institutional Security Office (GSI).

Brazil’s new national cybersecurity policy comes under military governance

The day after Christmas, the Brazilian government published a decree laying out the tenets of a national cybersecurity policy and creating a committee to oversee the issue.

State of play. The move came shortly after the discovery of threats against President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and the hijacking of the X account belonging to First Lady Rosângela da Silva by a 17-year-old hacker, who posted offensive images and insults against the president on the first lady’s profile, which has over 1.2 million followers.

• The government denies any connection between these events and the new decree, which had been in the works for months.

What it says. The text of the decree is quite general, quickly listing the basic principles of the national cybersecurity policy, which include, for example, the guarantee of fundamental rights — in particular freedom of expression — protection of...