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Public Debate about its regulation
The Civil Rights Framework for the Internet, Act 12.965 of April 23rd 2014, which settles principles, guarantees, rights and duties for the users of the web in Brazil, is an Act made collaboratively by Brazilian government and society, using the internet as a platform for the debate.
The discussion will be developed within the following topics. Please try to post your comments inside the proper topic and subject to increase its relevance for the debate.
The net neutrality aims to preserve the internet’s open architecture, maintaining the user’s power of choice, the incentives to innovation by application providers, free competition and freedom of speech. The Civil Rights Framework for the Internet determines that Brazilian internet must respect the principle of net neutrality, i.e., that all the information must circulate in an isonomic way, regardless of its content, origin or destination, service, terminal or application.
Nevertheless, the Act itself admits exceptions to this principle, allowing traffic discrimination when that is part of the indispensable technical requisites for the internet’s operation or the prioritization of emergency services, and these exceptions have to be specified by the decree. In addition, the decree can clarify other definitions of the Act.
Note: For a better organization of the debate, we suggest that contributions concerning surveillance and enforcement of rules regarding this topic are made in this section.
The Civil Rights Framework for the Internet presents a set of rules that seek to ensure the citizens’ ownership of their personal data that are dealt with on the web, providing them a series of rights. In other words, the data that people provide to access a website or a social network remain theirs, they are not transferred to the companies responsible for providing those services. This gives citizens important guarantees to avoid misuse of their information.
The Civil Rights Framework for the Internet settles rules for privacy protection, be it regarding the custody and treatment of logs, personal data or communications by sites or companies that provide access to the internet, be it in respect of how this information should be available to citizens (art. 11, § 3).
The regulation must settle safety standards for keeping such data (Art. 10, § 4). On the one hand, strict security standards impose costs to the companies responsible for guarding the data. On the other, the lack of attention to security of information leaves the citizen’s data exposed. The regulation, therefore, has to find the appropriate level of protection, and to balance minimum security criteria with the companies’ flexibility of choice for one security standard or another.
In addition, the Civil Rights Framework for the Internet legislates about the web users’ privacy rights in general, and the regulation may clarify these rules.
Note: For a better organization of the debate, we suggest that contributions concerning surveillance and enforcement of rules regarding this topic are made in this section.
Keeping access logs can facilitate the investigation of crimes committed on the web, since that doesn’t harm the user’s privacy or freedom of expression, both guaranteed by the Act. The Civil Rights Framework for the Internet settles that sites or companies that provide access to the internet have to keep the access and application logs for a certain period of time.
The regulation must define which providers are subject to the rules about custody of logs (Art. 15) and establish procedures to guard and request those logs (Art. 13). It is also important that these rules do not represent barriers to the entry of new companies in the market due to the high cost required for compliance.
Note: For a better organization of the debate, we suggest that contributions concerning surveillance and enforcement of rules regarding this topic are made in this section.
In a decree, it is possible to clarify aspects of a law (in this case, the Civil Rights Framework for the Internet) and to define obligations to the Federal Executive Government, since they don’t raise expenses nor create or extinguish public entities. Having that in mind, in this topic the user can make contributions about other aspects of the Act that can be better addressed or specified in the regulation – attempting to the impossibility to change the previsions of the law – and about governmental initiatives regarding the internet.
Known as the Internet Bill of Rights, the Civil Rights Framework for the Internet has filled a gap in Brazilian legislation by clearly defining rights and responsibilities in the use of digital media. Thus, it turned into a benchmark for other countries not only for its content, but also for the public participation process in which it was based.
The text of the Act had its origin in a public debate promoted in 2009 by the Ministry of Justice in partnership with the Technology and Society Centre (Centro de Tecnologia e Sociedade – Fundação Getúlio Vargas), supported by the Ministry of Culture, using the digital platform CulturaDigital.br. With contributions from civil society, private sector, academy, specialists and common citizens interested in the subject, the draft bill was innovative for using a platform that allowed bigger interaction among participants, assuring that each contribution was seen and commented by all the other users engaged in the debate, allowing a better systematization of a text by the government.
Based on this broad discussion, the Executive Power sent to the National Congress the draft bill that gave origin to the current Civil Rights Framework for the Internet. Along its course in the National Congress, the Executive Power was able to assure the constitutional urgency that allowed its approval and sanction in time for the text to be presented in one of the most important events about the future of the internet on the planet, the Net Mundial Conference.
The participation on the debate about the regulation of the Civil Rights Framework for the Internet is open, everyone is welcome. For that to happen on an appropriate way, reading the Terms of Use of the website, which apply to all the discussion process, is fundamental.
Although it is completely open, the idea of the debate is not to be a ‘chat’, neither a conventional forum. It is indispensable to clarify that the process can’t be faced as a plebiscite: repeated messages with the same content written by many participants or the same person, comments with lots of “agreed” or “disagreed”, and even themes with plenty of comments do not necessarily mean that their content will be included or not in the normative text after the systematization.
Therefore, the participants should try to qualify their contributions as much as possible, so the decision makers can absorb the arguments of the discussions in the best possible way, once that that is the aim of the process. In the same way, it is necessary to attempt to the limits of a decree, being impossible for the regulation to change the rules settled by the law. According to the Constitution, the role of a decree is to detail what is established on the law and to dispose about the federal administration’s organization and operation, when that does not raise expenses nor creates or extinguishes public organizations.
The discussions are divided in topics. Fundamentally, the contributions should be posted on the appropriate section of the website, referring to its theme. Many regulation topics may have connection among themselves, so every user can decide the most appropriate topic for its comment or, eventually, divide their contribution between different subtopics inside each topic. It is important to post comments in the right thematic section. Comments posted on the wrong thematic section may not be considered.
All the participation should have by principle the good faith and politeness, being forbidden any form of abuse. The debate can be moderated according to the Terms of Use, which will apply whenever it is made necessary.
Once more, we count on your contribution to strengthen internet democracy!
Bill 12.965 of April 23rd 2014
Following the same success trail, the process of regulation of the Civil Rights Framework for the internet will also be founded on the open and plural participation on an online platform, following the Act’s previsions of bigger democratization of the internet. Innovating in participative process one more time, the Ministry of Justice will launch a public debate for the discussion of a decree for the first time. Always reminding that the debate result cannot change or exceed the previsions of the Act that originated it, this process will bring the President arguments for the elaboration of the decree that will regulate the Civil Rights Framework for the Internet, expanding once more the democratization of normative acts elaboration.
Regulation is necessary for the correct application of rules contained in the Civil Rights Framework for the Internet because some articles of the Act make explicit remission to regulation, such as the exceptions to net neutrality or security procedures that companies must embrace when dealing with the user’s data. These themes, therefore, must be regulated.
However, the decree is important to allow better application of the law even when no express remission to regulation is made. Therefore, other themes that deserve clarification might be regulated in order to be effective, such as government initiatives to reach the goals settled by the Civil Rights Framework for the Internet.
The different themes were divided in topics, in which a public debate will be promoted in order to subsidize the government’s analysis about the best way to approach each theme on the decree.
The regulation of the Civil Rights Framework for the Internet is extremely important to guarantee the legal certainty of its rules and reinforce the rights and guarantees ensured on it.
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Porque esta é mais uma oportunidade de diálogo aberta pelo governo para ouvir a sociedade sobre temas importantes.
Após realizar o seu cadastro, você poderá comentar os debates públicos abertos no site, concordar ou discordar de outros comentários, criar novas pautas e responder à pautas criadas por outros usuários.
Por isso, ao se cadastrar, você será uma parte importante do processo, e sua opinião pode influenciar leis, decretos, portarias, e outras peças normativas sobre assuntos relevantes ao nosso país.