Brazil’s Telecom Operators Made Strides and Had Shortcomings in Internet Lab’s New Report on User Privacy Practices

Brazil’s biggest internet connection providers made moderate advances in protecting customer data and being transparent about their privacy practices, but fell short on meeting certain requirements for upholding users’ rights under Brazil’s  data protection law, according to InternetLab’s 2022 Quem Defende Seus Dados? (Who Defends Your Data?) report.

In this seventh annual assessment of Brazil’s providers, InternetLab evaluated six companies, and looked at both their broadband and mobile services. Operators assessed include Oi fixed and mobile broadband; Vivo (Telefónica) fixed and mobile broadband, TIM fixed and mobile broadband,Claro/NET (América Móvil), Brisanet fixed and mobile broadband, and Algar (broadband only). The operators were evaluated in six categories, including providing information about their data protection policies, disclosing guidelines for law enforcement seeking user data, defending user privacy in courts, supporting pro-privacy policies, publishing transparency reports, and notifying users when the government requests their data.

This year, Oi broke into the top and tied with TIM in receiving the highest scores—each company garnered  full credit in four out of six categories. Every company in the report received full credit for challenging privacy-abusive legislation and government requests for user data except Algar, which received half credit. While Brisanet improved its overall standing, earning full credit in this category, it received the least amount of credit among its peers, echoing last year’s report.

With Brazilian providers steadily improving transparency and customer data protection over the years, methodological changes were made in this edition to raise the bar for achieving credit in a few categories. Specifically, assessing companies’ compliance with data protection legislation has been expanded to include more requirements for transparency about data sharing with third parties. New criteria for measuring transparency around customers’ rights,  data handovers to authorities, and cybersecurity protocols were also added.

Finally, InternetL

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