How save is the world wide web?

The law project regarding cybercrimes was approved in July at Brazil’s Senate, and now depends on the approval in the Chamber of Deputies of the country. The law project redaction, however, has been the target of criticism. A commentary on Brazilian cybercrime by WAVE author Gabriela Zago, from Pelotas, Brazil

Imagine how it would be if, every time you leave your home, a camera followed you wherever you go, registering all your steps, recording everything that you see or say, and then all that information would be saved and stored for a 3 years period. Then, if you committed any crime during that period, there wouldn’t be much to do in order to prove it – police only needs to access your data, and then punishment would be fast and rightly.

Does this seem absurd? But something like that is planned in one of the articles of a law project, which is in vote in the National Congress in Brazil, regarding Internet access. If the project becomes law, Internet providers (ISP) would have to keep data on users’ connections for a period of 3 years. Moreover, ISPs would be required to report any suspicion that a user might be about to commit a cybercrime. The problem – besides requiring absurd technical and economic capacity to store all this data – is that it violates some basic principles of the constitution of the country – like the presumption of innocence. According to Reporters Without Borders, “this bill is potentially dangerous for online free expression”, since it “reinforces surveillance of the Internet and provides for penalties of up to three years in prison without any precision as to how they should be applied”.

The Brazilian Senate gave the cybercrime project a go-ahead.

The law project regarding cybercrimes was approved in July at Brazil’s senate, and now depends on the approval in the Chamber of Deputies of the country. The law project redaction, however, has been the target of some criticism in terms of coverage on what is considered crime and more controversial issues involving the privacy of users and the confidentiality of their information. Somehow, that is something that is happening simultaneously in almost every place in the world: countries are starting to feel the necessity of trying to create specific laws to regulate digital content; users are not happy with the situation.

The reaction against the law project in Brazil is led by Brazilian intellectuals. The project is being largely discussed over the Internet, by bloggers, professors, researchers, and Internet users of the country. Blogs, microblogs, social networking sites and other Internet tools are being used to protest against the bill. There is also a petition, started by three Brazilian researchers on social media, Sérgio Amadeu, André Lemos and João Caribé, that has got, so far, over 97,500 signatures. A campaign against the project was started at Sérgio Amadeu’s weblog, calling upon everyone to “Say NO to senator Azeredo’s project”.

The cybercrimes law project is not all bad. It provides, among other things, severe punishment against paedophilia. But most of the articles are controversial. Other questionable points of the bill are the very open expressions, which can lead to broad interpretations in the courts, or on the other hand the very specific classification of crimes, as the crime of larceny by electronic fraud.

Are the laws that already exist not sufficient to cover Internet crimes? Do we really need to create new laws to combat crimes committed in certain types of media? Or does the crime base remain the same, regardless of the medium? – In other words, is it really necessary to create laws specifically for Internet crimes, or are those crimes just like the ones that happens outside the internet?

All pictures are public domain at Pixelio.

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