Editorial: The Internet, Only Civilized

04/25/2014 - 10h29

Finally, Brazil gets its 'Internet Constitution,' as the Marco Civil has come to be known. The law, which was sanctioned on Wednesday by President Dilma Rousseff, has more good qualities than bad. A surprise, perhaps, given that Congress dithered over it for three years before it was finally rushed through the Senate.

The constitutional analogy is appropriate, as the new law establishes principles, guarantees, rights and duties in the virtual environment for users, service providers and public bodies. It has three founding principles: neutrality, privacy and security.

On the first point, good sense and the collective interest of Brazil's 100 million or more internet users has prevailed. Service providers are permitted to offer different packages (in terms of price and speed), but they cannot stipulate how their services are to be used, or make the connection faster or slower according to the type of use.

In other words, for the user, the internet must be neutral. Service providers are not permitted to impair the connection of a user who is downloading or watching a video, for example.

The traditional conflict between individual rights - such as honor and reputation - and civil liberties such as the right to self-expression and the right to information, received the conventional liberal treatment: a site may only be obliged to remove online content following a judicial decision.

A website - such as a social network - will only be held responsible if it fails to comply with a judicial order. Or, if after having been notified, it fails to remove online content which violates the right to privacy of a third party (for example, in the case of images of nudity or sexual activity uploaded without the consent of the people depicted).

The Marco Civil also sets rules on data storage. Service providers will be permitted to retain connection data for one year. This data is inviolable, and may only be accessed by the authorities with judicial permission, in the case of criminal investigations, for example.

This was one of the few points that sparked debate in the Senate. The senator Aloysio Nunes Ferreira (Brazilian Social Democracy Party) proposed that the law specified exactly which authorities would have the power to request personal information, but his motion was defeated.

An amendment such as this - of content, rather than just wording - would have sent the bill back to Congress for another round of debate. This would have angered the President, who wanted the bill rubber stamped in time for the event NETMundial, which took place in São Paulo on Wednesday.

The Senate agreed and ratified the bill. Perhaps for the senators it seemed like a minor detail, but in the eyes of the public, it seems that once again, the Senate has not fulfilled its function as a check and balance on the other forms of government.