Chronicles of Internet Openness: The Brazilian Case Study

Abstract

In 2014, a data profiling company, Cambridge Analytica, gained access to the private data profiles of 50 million Facebook users. Through promotional offers that compensated users for taking a personality quiz, the company obtained personal data from users’ profiles and their Facebook “friends.” These Facebook users were unaware their data had been hijacked and that their information would be sold to Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign. Allegedly, the data was used by that campaign to manipulate their voting interests.

While this data was apparently used to influence the U.S. presidential elections, data obtained in a similar fashion could have also influenced electoral outcomes in other countries. One example is the 2018 Brazilian presidential elections. After disclosure of the U.S. breach, Brazilian prosecutors revealed that they were opening an investigation into whether Cambridge Analytica also improperly harvested data from millions of Brazilian internet users. Considering this data was apparently used to aid the winner of Brazil’s 2018 elections, the far-right Jair Bolsonaro, the political divisiveness caused by Cambridge Analytica’s data harvesting is sure to have a profound and lasting impact.

While this anecdote relates to data privacy issues in the Americas, it also speaks to broader issues of transnational internet governance. Concern over the data privacy of domestic internet users, in the wake of an increasingly interconnected world, was one of the motivating factors that led the Brazilian government to implement its landmark “Internet Bill of Rights,” the Marco Civil da Internet (MCI) in 2014, the same year as the Cambridge Analytica breach. Based on democratic values that seek to advance internet openness, the MCI provides detailed guidelines aimed at promoting the civil right to internet access, net neutrality, and data privacy. This Article chronicles the implementation and efficacy of Brazil’s recent internet laws to demonstrate that changing times call for a reassessment of open values in internet governance. Such values are likely to have meaningful implications beyond the Brazilian context.

Keywords: openness, internet governance, democracy, Brazil