São Paulo Government Offers Service to Access 30 Million Citizens' Confidential National ID Card Info

06/13/2018 - 12h11

The São Paulo Government has started offering a certification service that contains confidential national ID card data (such as fingerprints) of approximately 30 million people.

With the help of an optical reader, companies interested in the data will be able to purchase access packages and confirm whether or not a person's fingerprints have been registered in the São Paulo police database.

The service, which had never been launched in a Brazilian state before, is being overseen by company Imprensa Oficial, and has been criticized by the Order of Attorneys of Brazil (OAB) and the Brazilian Consumer Protection Institute (Idec). They believe that there is a lack of regulations protecting the use of sensitive ID card data, not to mention uncertainties concerning the security systems that will be used to store the information.

Imprensa Oficial, a company that is linked to the government of São Paulo, started offering the service on its website. No sales have been formalized yet.

"Why should they [Imprensa Oficial] have access to this police data? They're a company. The police receive this kind of information so they can use it for security reasons, not so it can be sold," Marco da Costa, the president of the OAB in São Paulo, pointed out.

Thiago Arruda, the director of the Companhia Paulista de Parcerias, which is connected to the government of São Paulo, said that the matter was widely discussed within the government and that there are no legal problems. "We discussed this at length with the State Attorney General, who participated in all the discussions and it was considered legal. There is no question about it."

Translated by THOMAS MATHEWSON

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