ICT and Human Rights in Brazil: From Military to Digital Dictatorship

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Author(s): José Rodrigues Filho (Universidade Federal da Paraíba, Brazil)
Copyright: 2013
Pages: 14
Source title: Human Rights and Information Communication Technologies: Trends and Consequences of Use
Source Author(s)/Editor(s): John Lannon (University of Limerick, Ireland)and Edward Halpin (Leeds Metropolitan University, UK)
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-4666-1918-0.ch006

Keywords: Human Aspects of Technology / Information Science Reference / Social Sciences & Humanities

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Abstract

Since the end of military government in Brazil, civilian governments have sought the accumulation and exercise of power to the detriment of the citizenry. They have done this with a kind of totalitarianism that takes the form of digital or bureaucratic dictatorship. Since the 1990s, they have started to implement information technology in the public sector to regulate and run the country in a command-and-control way through technological or bureaucratic dictatorship rather democratic process. While it is evident that there is a high level of investment in information technology in the public sector (e-government) in Brazil, there are also clear signs of the violation of human rights in terms of privacy. These occur, for instance, when the public administration exercises the power to engage in a process of electronic surveillance without the supervision of the judiciary. It is alleged that thousands of individual files have been accessed in the public administration in Brazil, despite the privacy protection offered by the national constitution. In addition, there is a proliferation of biometric identification using faces, eyes, fingerprints, and other body parts, especially in the e-voting system. This chapter shows how information technology (e-government) in Brazil could lead to violations of human rights because of the proliferation of biometric identification in the e-voting system as well as other sorts of invisible electronic surveillance that are affecting civil liberties and individual rights, including privacy.

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