Public Debate on the Protection of Personal Data

The Public Debate on the Protection of Personal Data was a series of online public consultations held primarily by the Ministry of Justice during 2010-2011 and 2015 to inform on the drafting of a General Data Protection bill. The draft, which was released by the Ministry of Justice on October 20th, 2015 to the Presidency and later sent to the National Congress by former President Dilma Rousseff on May 13th, 2016 is now Bill n. 5276/16 and is the result of work that began in 2005, when several Brazilian Ministries (Justice, Industry, Commerce and Innovation, Development and Foreign Trade) began working on the subject of personal data protection within the framework of the MERCOSUR Sub-Working Group 13 (SGT13, on e-commerce). In this group, Argentina, presented a proposal for an internal agreement within MERCOSUR for the protection of personal data, based on its own legal understanding of the matter, which came into force in 2000. A regulation on data protection began to be discussed by these ministries within the executive until November 2010 when the Ministry of Justice had prepared, based on work began by SGT13, a draft text that led to an online debate, which itself began in November 2010 and ended in April 2011. This public debate was supported by the Brazilian Observatory for Digital Policy from the Brazilian Internet Steering Committee (CGI.br) in partnership with the Center for Technology and Society at Getulio Vargas? Foundation School of Law in Rio de Janeiro (CTS / FGV-Rio). After this first debate, the text was then further revised through internal meetings in the Executive Branch until January of 2015, when it was re-released for a new online consultation that closed in July 5th, 2015. Citizens could comment on the proposed text as well as send consolidated proposals through PDF that would be uploaded to the platform in order for other citizens to interact and comment. To engage with users, the Ministry of Justice also produced social media material explaining technical aspects of the law. Individuals from a diverse background and Academia produced online materials on how to engage with the public consultation, educational material to foster participation and updated analyses of the ongoing consultation. The private sector also engaged in round table and seminar discussions regarding the proposed consultation. The platform received 14 000 visits and over 2000 contributions and comments. The results of this consultation were analyzed with the support of the Research Center on Web Technologies (CeWeb), the Brazilian Network Information Center (NIC.br) and the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG). This joint work is the result of the agreement signed by CGI.br and the Ministry of Justice on open data and is considered an initial step to apply machine learning and web-based analytical tools for public policy on open data and open government. All of the analyses are still available on CeWeb's GitHub repository. Until 2016, Brazil, Ecuador, Bolivia, Venezuela, Guyana and Suriname are the only countries in South America without personal data protection provisions.

Institutional design

Formalization

only backed by a governmental program or policy 

Frequency

sporadic

Mode of selection of participants

open 

Type of participants

citizens civil society private stakeholders  

Decisiveness

democratic innovation yields a binding decision  

Co-Governance

yes 

Means Deliberation Direct Voting E-Participation Citizen Representation

Ends Accountability Responsiveness Rule of Law Political Inclusion Social Equality

Sources

• http://pensando.mj.gov.br/dadospessoais/
• http://culturadigital.br/dadospessoais/
• https://www.facebook.com/Debate-P%C3%BAblico-Prote%C3%A7%C3%A3o-de-Dados-Pessoais-170882592934972/
• https://twitter.com/dadospessoais?lang=de
• https://github.com/W3CBrasil/AI-Social