BRAZIL Law and Practice Contributed by: Japyassú Resende Lima and Fabiana Lopes Pinto Santello, Lopes Pinto, Nagasse Advogados
International developments in privacy protec - tion, especially regarding personal data and its use, have had a strong impact in Brazil. Some examples of this are: • advancement of legislation, based on the LGPD, inspired by the European GDPR; • incorporation of international standards, pro - viding greater harmonisation and facilitating international trade, especially in sectors that deal with personal data; • increasing public awareness of privacy rights and the importance of personal data protec - tion; • greater accountability of companies in organi - sations in general; • implementation challenges, especially regard - ing the lack of infrastructure and technical knowledge; • increased level of technical co-operation for the secure exchange of personal data, which is key in digital trade and working in global networks; and • intensification of the protection of sensitive personal data. 2.2 Recent Case Law In Brazil, litigation involving privacy and per - sonal data protection is increasing in number and complexity. For example, in 2021 there were 274 court decisions that considered the General Data Protection Law, but between 2022 and 2023 this number rose from 665 to 1206 (the data are from Brazilian entities, supported by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)). The areas in which the most litigation involv - ing personal data and the right to privacy has occurred are consumer law, civil law and labour law. In the field of consumer law, more and more people have resorted to Article 20 of the LGPD,
which allows consumers (of a product or service) to be informed of the criteria of this type of deci - sion, taken solely based on computerised pro - cessing of personal data that affects the inter - ests of the holders, such as decisions regarding personal profile, professional, consumer, credit or personality aspects. Subjects such as digital evidence of geoloca - tion in labour lawsuits, identification of people via biometrics and access to data stored by employers have dominated labour law issues. In this area there are also disputes over the chal - lenge of automated decisions related to trans - port apps, both about knowing what the existing relationship is (whether labour or merely com - mercial, in the civil sphere). Other topics have dominated privacy litigation, such as issues about the sharing of personal data, its transfer to foreign countries, the use of personal data in the financial segment for the prevention of illicit acts, and credit analysis of the use of personal data in pharmacological research. The financial sector is one of the most represent - ative in privacy lawsuits, accounting for about 26% of LGPD-related lawsuits, which shows the complexity of processing personal data in this sector, especially regarding the use of personal information for credit assessment and fraud pre - vention. 2.3 Collective Redress Mechanisms The idea of protecting fundamental rights through collective instruments is not exactly new, and some court decisions prior to the LGPD show this. The Brazilian Constitution establishes that fundamental rights, such as the protection of personal data, can be protected collectively, which favours access to justice for a greater
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