Thursday, April 24, 2014

Brazil's new Internet 'Bill of Rights' protects privacy, ensures net neutrality...

Brazil's president signed into law on Wednesday a "Bill of Rights" for the digital age that aims to protect online privacy and promote the Internet as a public utility by barring telecommunications companies from charging for preferential access to their networks.

The law signed by President Dilma Rousseff at a global conference on the future of Internet governance puts Brazil in the vanguard of online consumer protection and what is known as "net neutrality," whose promoters consider it profoundly democratic in part because it keeps financial barriers for innovators low.

The new law promotes privacy by limiting the data that online companies can collect on Internet users in this nation of 200 million people, deeming communications over the Internet "inviolable and secret." Service providers must develop protocols to ensure email can be read only by senders and their intended recipients. Violators are subject to penalties including fines and suspension.

The law obliges Internet companies, however, to hold on to user data for six months and hand it over to law enforcement under court order.

Enactment of the law, which won final legislative approval in the Senate late Tuesday, coincided with Brazil's hosting of a global conference widely seen as an effort to chart a path for a less U.S.-centric Internet and attended by high-level delegations from countries including Germany and the United States. Full story...

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