By Angelica Mari for Brazil Tech
Last night (25), an
overwhelming majority of Brazil's Chamber of Deputies voted in favor of the
Marco Civil da Internet and its provisions around net
neutrality, right to privacy and freedom of expression online.
The Bill, which now needs
to be cleared by the Senate before it is sanctioned by president Dilma
Rousseff, had its voting postponed several times in the last three years. It
gained prominence after the NSA spying scandal and
became the center of a political minefield due to disagreement over several
crucial points.
The provisions around net neutrality are a key
reason why the Bill is considered a major victory for the civil society and
activists alike. Just as in other countries, telcos want to maintain their
ability to favor certain internet services over others to their own commercial
advantage - if it becomes law, the Marco Civil will ensure that this can't
happen.
In order to speed up the
progress of the Bill, the government gave up on the local storage
requirements last week. The measure was intended to ensure the
privacy of Internet users as well as government data following the news of NSA
spying activity, which allegedly included monitoring of communications
between President Dilma Rousseff and key aides.
Due to the removal of the requirement for
local storage, the project rapporteur Alessandro Molon stressed the need to
"strengthen" another article of the Bill, which states that companies
storing and managing data generated by Brazilians should comply with Brazilian
law when it comes to privacy rights, data protection and secrecy of private
communications regardless of where datacenters - and the data itself - are
located.
The Marco Civil also
preserves protection against intermediary responsibility, which means that
Internet service providers will not be liable for any offensive content published
by users - currently, Brazil has no specific rules on this and court decisions vary around
whether companies or users should be penalized over offensive pages.
According to the Bill, service providers will
only be liable for damage caused by third parties if they don't comply with
court orders requiring the removal of the offensive content. The purpose of the
rule, according to the project's rapporteur Molon, is to strengthen freedom of
expression on the web and avoid falling into what he defined as "private
censorship."
The Bill is still subject to changes by the
Senate, but its supporters are confident that the Marco Civil might, after all,
become law before NETmundial, the global conference on Internet governance that
will take place in Brazil next month.
The founder of the World Wide Web Sir Tim Berners-Lee has called for Brazil's first set of internet governance rules to be passed "without further delay or amendment." “If Marco Civil is passed, without further delay or amendment, this would be the best possible birthday gift for Brazilian and global Web users," says Berners-Lee."By passing this Bill, Brazil will cement its proud reputation as a world leader on democracy and social progress and will help to usher in a new era – one where citizens’ rights in every country around the world are protected by digital bills of rights," he adds. The scientist pointed out that Marco Civil has been built by internet users in a "groundbreaking, inclusive and participatory process" and has resulted in regulations that "balances the rights and responsibilities of the individuals, governments and corporations who use the Internet."