What to expect now when the hot topic is the regulation of Artificial Intelligence?
*By Luiz Felipe Vieira de Siqueira
Unfortunately, Brazil needs to have strong emotions to approve important laws, especially in the Digital Age. As an example, we have some emblematic cases, such as the Internet Civil Rights Framework, the Carolina Dieckmann Law and the General Data Protection Law. What can we expect now when the hot topic is the regulation of Artificial Intelligence?
The commercial use of the Internet arrived in Brazil in 1995, the year in which the Brazilian Internet Steering Committee was created. It was only in 2009 that the CGI.br published the ten principles of the Internet in Brazil. In that same year, the Ministry of Justice sent the preliminary draft of the Civil Rights Framework for the Internet for public debate. It was then sent to the National Congress, where it was shelved.
The Internet Bill was only converted into law after the scandal involving former CIA technician Edward Snowden in May 2013. The case became famous for leaking confidential US security information and revealing in detail some of the surveillance programs that the country used to spy on the American population and other countries, including Brazil. The Snowden episode is well portrayed in the film of the same name¹.
The classification of computer crimes began with Bill No. 1,713/96. Later, Bill 84/99 was put on the agenda. In 2005, Bills 76/2000 and 137/2000 were appended. The three bills were combined into a Substitute text, approved on July 9, 2008.
Actress Carolina Dieckmann had sensual photos leaked in 2011 by someone who repaired her computer. A little over a year later, Law 12.737/2012 was passed, amending the Brazilian Penal Code and named after the actress, overriding the long debate that had taken place before.
On 25/05/2016, the European Union sanctioned the General Data Protection Regulation – GDPR², which came into force on 25/05/2018. The European Union pressured other countries to approve standards and establish an Independent Supervisory Authority, through rules on international data transfer.
Brazil remained inactive until the Cambridge Analytica case came to light. The documentary The Hacked Privacy³ records what happened. Brazil quickly stepped up its pace and sanctioned the General Data Protection Law on August 14, 2018. The LGPD came into force in September 2020 and its sanctions can be applied since August 2021. In 2022, through Constitutional Amendment 115/22, data protection was included in the list of fundamental rights and guarantees in the Constitution of the Republic, the same year in which the National Data Protection Authority finally became independent.
It is expected that the debate on Artificial Intelligence in PL 2338/2023 will be deepened, so that the country is not at the mercy of a new scandal to sanction Laws based on emotion and not reason.
*Luiz Felipe Vieira de Siqueira is a lawyer, researcher at Think Tank ABES, PhD student in Innovation & Technology – PPGIT UFMG and partner at Privacy Point.
Notice: The opinion presented in this article is the responsibility of its author and not of ABES - Brazilian Association of Software Companies
Article originally published on the IT Forum website https://itforum.com.br/colunas/brasil-leis-por-emocao-e-nao-por-razao/
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