Giulia Keese Montanhesi
Lawyer at Marcos Martins Advogados
In a session held by videoconference on May 7, 2020, the Plenary of the STF issued a decision in 5 (five) Direct Actions of Unconstitutionality. The decision suspends the effectiveness of Provisional Measure no. 954/2020, which provides for the sharing of data by telecommunications companies with the IBGE, during the public health emergency resulting from the Coronavirus.
The Rapporteur, Justice Rosa Weber, in a count of 10 votes to just one, granted the precautionary measures requested to suspend the effects of the Provisional Measure, so that the IBGE refrains from requesting the information, on the grounds that it violates items X (privacy and intimacy), XII (communication of data) and LXXII (habeas data), article 5, of the Federal Constitution.
In addition to the constitutional grounds, the decision was based on the General Data Protection Law – LGPD and pointed out several flaws in the regulation, since the MP failed to provide mechanisms and procedures to ensure the secrecy, integrity and anonymity of personal data and the absence of a legitimate public interest in sharing, proving to be insufficient to the requirements established in the Constitutional Charter, with regard to the effective protection of fundamental rights.
“The greatest danger to democracy today is no longer represented by traditional coups d’état, perpetrated with rifles, tanks or cannons, but now by the progressive control of citizens’ private lives, carried out by governments of different ideological hues, through the massive and indiscriminate collection of personal information, including, increasingly, facial recognition.”
