I'm Not a Number

Lovely, indeed!

2008-10-16T15:09:00.000-07:00

Now, thieves are stealing CCTV cameras! And I always thought CCTV cameras were to protect people, assets, whatever.

RFID-license plates are coming!

2007-10-07T14:08:00.000-07:00

São Paulo Mayor, Gilberto Kassab, announced that his city will be the first Brazilian city to implement the National Automated Vehicle Identification System (Siniav), a privacy-eroding system made up by chips embedded into license plates and RFID readers throughout the city. It will cost roughly R$ 300 mi ( US$ 166 mi) to be fully operative.

Surprisingly, a privacy-oriented opposition to the system has emerged in Brazil since the National Council of Transportation (Contran) laid down an ordinance creating Siniav. Kassab denied São Paulo's Siniav is going to be a "Big Brother". However, transportation officials from Kassab's City Hall said it's difficult to keep the massive amount of data secret. Moreover, officials from the very deparment also said Siniav isn't hacker-safe.

Quite a good riddance!

2007-08-13T11:06:00.000-07:00

My favorite assemblyman (Sarcasm Index: Very High), Carlos Gomes (PPS) introduced a bill, PL 317/2007, to take Act 12714/2007 out of RS' statute books. Act 12714/2007 requires every cardholder to produce a government-issued ID card in order to perform any credit or debit card transaction. This Act outraged both cardholders and store owners, with several clients stopping short of assaulting shopkeepers.

Bill 317/2007 will exempt every card transaction of mandatory ID exhibition but non-PIN credit cards. I hope some day Mr. Gomes apologized Gaúcho people for his legislative nutjob.

This is for sure the very cause of the Brazilian Air Mess

2007-07-29T08:08:00.000-07:00

Brazil's National Civil Aviation Anarchy Agency, a.k.a. National Civil Aviation Agency, (Anac) rolled out a new ad campaign called as "Identity Campaign". Yeah, I wrote it right! Anac is spending lots of money to remind passengers that their privacy and liberty to travel are being fettered by outrageous Civil Aviation Instruction 107-1002/2002, which demands government-issued ID cards to every person who wants to board an airplane. I wonder how important this issue should be, as key areas of air traffic are left in utter neglect.

It's about to time to start a new campaign, Brain Campaign, which would require mandatory MRI scan in every person applying for a job befor Anac.

Este post tem uma versão em português:
"Deve ter sido que causou a crise aérea"

"Quasi-battery" cases

2007-07-24T09:33:00.000-07:00

Rio Grande do Sul Legislative Assembly enacted into law one of the dumbest bills ever: Bill 83/2007, which requires mandatory producing of government-issued ID card at every commercial transaction with credit or debit cards. Bill, currently Act 12714/2007, also mandates writing down ID card number on credit or debit card slip. Failure (or refusal) to produce ID card might lead to refusal of the card, or even annulation of the commercial transaction.

Now, the Porto Alegre Chamber of Commercial Managers (CDL-POA) is assessing legal remedies to overturn the Act. CDL-POA says customers are acting furiously when asked to produce ID card, retorting stores' employees, and in some cases, stopping short of assaulting stores' personnel, or, like CDL-POA said, "[engaging in] quasi-battery cases".

This blog has also dennounced the unconstitutionality of the Act, calling the Attorney-General's Office for an inquiry about this Act. For this time being, my complaint is being analyzed by the Deputy Attorney-General for Juridical Issues.

Just for comparision purposes, Section 1748.08 of the California Civil Code forbids such a practice.

Este post tem uma versão em portugês:
"Casos de 'quase-agressão'"

Kids' fingerprints are safe again!

2007-07-10T14:52:00.000-07:00

fZero Hora (newspaper) reported this Monday that a national program to track school attendance by massive use of fingerprints is everything but inoperative. Zero Hora said School Attendance Tracking System (Safe, in its Portuguese acronym) was relinquished and many of the related paraphernalia is deteriorating in some storage room. In March 29 of 2006, 94 public schools of Capão da Canoa and Gravataí received each one a computer to run the system and, a fingerprint-plus-contactless card reader. 15 months later, such devices are stored away in those schools’ cabinets. Luiz Moschetti School [in Capão da Canoa] Principal, Lurdes Silva, said:

“[T]here were some days in which system worked properly, but in other days, system didn’t work at all. In December [of 2006], system shut down entirely. They said they would replace the fingerprint reader, but nobody showed up and, I'm not sure whether someone will show up [and replace broken fingerprint reader].”

Riachuelo Educational Institute in Capão da Canoa, one of the biggest public schools in Rio Grande do Sul’s Northern Coast, many students hadn't received the identification card and, fingerprint reader was installed within a metal box whose key is now missing. Institute’s Clerk, Marlene Correa, said “[fingerprint reading, attendance tracker] program went nuts all the time. Moreover, many students haven’t received ID cards and several students lost their cards.” In Gravataí, Nicolau Chiavaro Neto State School received a computer but not the fingerprint reader. An unidentified school officer ironically said “[we, the school] are looking forward [the reader]”.

One of several smoking guns of Safe’s failure was Brazilian government’s refusal to discuss it. Ministry of Education says the responsibility of Safe’s operation falls under National Educational Research and Study Institute’s scope. So does Federal Data Processing Service (Serpro), which was in charge of setting up Safe’s infrastructure. Inep said Safe was a Ministry of Education issue. After three contacts by Zero Hora reporters, Ministry of Education said “Attendance Project [umbrella project of Safe] no longer exists and it was absorbed into Educacenso [a nationwide census of school students]”. Both Ministry of Education, Inep and, Serpro declined to discuss Safe’s costs, which would cost anything ranging from US$ 55,000,000 to US$ 66,000,000 to set up Safe infrastructure (computers, fingerprint readers, ID cards and, related IT) throughout Brazilian public schools.

iGnoring the facts

2006-09-10T04:45:00.000-07:00

There is no such a revenge as truth. Senator Delcídio Amaral (PT-MS) sponsors a bill (PLS 279/2003) requiring all e-mail providers to have customers' CPF numbers produced. Bill also set heavy penalties for those (either ISPs or citizens) that fail to produce such a number. CPF is the Brazilian counterpart for American SSN.

For this time being, there is no legal requirement of what information ISPs have to demand from their clients. However, iG does require customers' CPF in order to provide e-mail, blogs, internet access and so on. iG says that this requirement is necessary to protect (sic) identities from real users and to avoid the use of email for criminal purposes. Is that so? Let's check out a list with some topshots of Brazilian society:

Fernando Henrique Cardoso, former President of Brazil
Geraldo Alckmin, former Governor of São Paulo and current presidential candidate
Eduardo Azeredo, Federal Senator
José Serra, former Mayor of São Paulo and current gubernatorial candidate
Lula, current President of Brazil seeking for re-election
Marta Suplicy, former Mayor of São Paulo
Roberto Marinho, late owner of TV Globo.

I do wonder why Lula, Cardoso do need that amount of e-mail in a free service when they have a huge infrastructure behind them. It's the smoking gun that iG policy is a crappy, totalitarian one.

Google filed an appeal on Orkut row

2006-09-03T11:19:00.000-07:00

Google Brazil is not buying the prosecutorial bullying promoted by the Assistant Brazil Attorney Sérgio Suiama, primus inter activistus prosecutori. Suiama has filed a class action demanding $61,000,000 ($0.3 per Brazilian citizen) from Google, Inc. as special damages for damaging "collective moral value" of Brazil by imposing hurdles to prosecutorial work. Suiama also managed to secure a court order fining Google Brasil Ltda. by a $23,000 daily-punitive damages for each discovery order disregarded by Google Brasil Ltda.

Sometimes I wonder about Suiama is to bring a lawsuit against Dell, HP, and several other PC companies, as those PCs are used to access Internet; electric utilites may be joindered to that class action, doh, computers do need electricity to operate.

Luckily, not everyone else seems to agree with Mr. Suiama's fascist lawsuits. A judge from Rio de Janeiro stated Google cannot held liable for Orkut's content due to technical reasons.

It's important to note that Google Row isn't the first censorlike lawsuit filed by Suiama. Suiama had already censored a TV network for broadcasting a show which didn't respect "human rights". This show, Tarde Quente, was replaced by the NGO-sponsored Direitos de Resposta. Suiama said in the very last broadcast of Direitos de Resposta that his favorite TV show is South Park.

Left-wing twit brags himself about massive database

2006-08-04T15:12:00.000-07:00

Left-wing nutjob Geraldo Alckmin (PSDB) bragged himself in his official blog about managing to create a massive, 700,000+ database of customers of state-sponsored Internet access facilities.

Brazilian Govt. wanna restrict access to Justice

2006-08-03T07:45:00.000-07:00

Brazilian Federal Government, thru House Bill 692/2005, wants to create a legal restriction to lawsuits against Federal Treasury. Bill requires every plaintiff to produce CPF and ID numbers in order to have the lawsuit accepted by court of law.

ID-card-requirement-at-cybecafés wave sweeping through the globe

2006-07-07T06:57:00.000-07:00

Not only Brazil has this problem. It seems to be a global privacy-trasher tsunami in progress. In Italy, birthplace of Fascism, Ordinance 144 requires ID from every cybercafé user. In Poland, there is a legal compulsion to email users to produce ID numbers from their ISPs. France is discussing similar measures in order to fight against terrorism. Mumbai Govt. in India wants to criminalize logons without proper ID, however, those IDs were to be issued by the Yehi Hai Mumbai Cyber Café's Association, as India has no government-issued ID.

Reporters without Borders condemns ID requirement at cybercafés

2006-07-07T05:46:00.000-07:00

Hi,
We condemn this kind of regulation. We believe that asking people's ID in cybercafes infringe their right to privacy. That being said, we never publish a statement on this kind of issue, since it's out of our mandate. BTW, do you know that Italy adopted similar regulations?
Regards,
Julien Pain

To whom it may concern,

I blog at "I'm Not a Number", the very first Brazilian English-speaking blog about privacy issues. As you may see in my blog, there are several Bill in National Congress requiring all Internet users in Brazil to produce identity cards every time they use Internet services like cybercafés, e-mail, and so on. Requirement similar to those enforced in China and Cuba.
There is a similar act currently enforced in the state of São Paulo.

I'm pretty concerned with this authoritarian wave sweeping Brazil. I'd like to know what is your opinion about the subject.

Respectfully,
Rodrigo Veleda

English version of State Act 12,228

2006-07-06T11:50:00.000-07:00

There is the first translation into English of the outrageous State Act 12,228, which requires registration of all Internet users in the State of São Paulo, Brazil.

Beared by criminals

2006-07-05T06:57:00.000-07:00

Inmates in São Paulo State Prisons managed to have several prisons employees' records held in several prisons throughout the state. Now, thugs connected to those inmates are killing correctional facilities workers from data available at those employees' records.

YOU are asking for it! Not me at all!

2006-07-05T06:54:00.000-07:00

Mr. Laércio dos Santos filed a lawsuit against the Federal Ministry of Justice due to lack of enforcmente of the Law 9.454/1997, which creates a National Identity Register. Someone could file a restraint order against this nutjob!

I wanna help out ID thieves

2006-07-05T06:49:00.000-07:00

Congressman Pastor Reinaldo (PTB-RS) wants to help out ID thives at expense of the privacy of the poorest sections of Brazilian society, currently enrolled at food stamp program called as "Bolsa-Família". His bill would require Bolsa-Família manager to make public names, assets, ID numbers and so on from every member of Bolsa-Família.

Not only the poorest people has to give in dignity, now they need to give in privacy.

Crappy report from a crappy Senator!

2006-07-03T04:56:00.000-07:00

Eduardo Azeredo (PSDB-MG), one of the several Leftist starlets in the Brazilian Social Democracy Party (PSDB), delivered a report on H.B. 88/2003, S.B. 137/2000 and, S.B. 76/200, which is a prime piece on IT disinformation. Below, mr. Azeredo proves without reasonable doubt why he is graduated in "I'm don't know a thing about Internet and I don't care about Reality" course from Detached from Reality University, a subsidiary of St. Byte Fundamentalist Int'l:

Vêm à memória os episódios danosos que ocorreram no início da operação com os celulares pré-pagos, o que obrigou o seu cadastramento obrigatório pelas operadoras, contra todos os argumentos então apresentados, ou seja, a sociedade brasileira mostrou o seu bom senso e mudou seu comportamento.
It comes up to one's mind the harmful episodies occurred back the beginning of pre-paid cellular phone operation, which led to a mandatory registration [of cellular phone users] by wireless carriers, even though those several argumentation against it. I mean, Brazilian society demonstrated its common sense and it changed its behavior.

Damm right, senator! You're 100% right, if we lived in Wonderland. Perhaps, you do but, this is a separate issue. Do I have to recall you about the prisonal insurgency back May 2006 in São Paulo State? Or those 835 cellular phones seized in Rio Grande do Sul State Correctional Facilities System in 2005? One million dollar question for you, Senator: who has alleged against mandatory registration of cellphone users? And finally, a country with millions of illiterate persons cannot have a "common sense" about high-tech crimes.

Gauchos are wasting their money

2006-07-02T09:14:00.000-07:00

In accordance to the 2006 Rio Grande do Sul State Budget, the General Institute of Forensics (IGP) issued 469,570 identity cards in the 2005 FY. Considering that an identity card issuance costs R$23,79 (US$10.99), Gauchos wasted R$11.171.070,30 (US$ 5,161,516.56) to have a very effective tool for tracking themselves down. Be reminded that "grand totale" is an estimate figure, since the Budget doesn't state whether those 469,570 2005-issued ID cards were all first time issued IDs or replacement ones; replacement IDs are more expensive (R$33,98 - US$15.70).

Let's analyze this waste of money. Looking into State Budge we see that those US$5 mi would pay 31.21% of all running costs of the IGP, whose main purpose is providing forensic evidence to police. Those same US$5 mi are 2.4x the whole appropriation for forensic analysis (R$4.604.935 - US$2,127,678.7). If the state officers were smart, they would use this sum of money to keep 2,538 inmates locked up in state prisons for one year, as R$4.400 (US$2,032.99) being the average annual cost to keep somebody locked up in a Brazilian correctional facility.

That's it, folks! Even for trashing your privacy the government charges you!

Bill 5520/2005 referred to House Committee on Constitution and Judiciary

2006-06-30T12:18:00.000-07:00

The outrageous Bill 5520/2005 sponsored by Rep. Félix Mendonça (PFL-BA), which creates a national DNA database containing genetic information of every Brazilian citizen, have been approved by the House Committee on Public Safety and Fight Against Organized Crime (CSPCCO). I hope members of House Committe on Constitution, Judiciary and Legal Redaction (CCJR) don't act cowardly as Rep. Raul Jungmann (PPS-PE).

In May 31, 2005, CSPCCO hosted a public hearing (hearing transcript in Portuguese) on Bill 5520/2005. Being as usual as fate, none of the experts invited to the hearing were pro-privacy or individual rights activist. Hearing transcript has more than 20 pages but, there is a single reference to individual privacy, which is nothing but a blatant confirmation that Federal government hates privacy and fiercely believes that identity cards aren't a threat to individual privacy, and to individualism itself.

Mr. Pereira, later this hearing, stated that initial costs of such a program may start with US$ 20 billion, not included the costs of setting up those DNA labs throughout the country, a country with severe lack of very basic police infrastructure, like computers and digital still cameras. Rep. Jungmann, apparently pissed-off, tried to rebuke Mr. Pereira's statement. Then, Mr. Pereira said that actual cost of ruining privacy in Brazil may be even higher because those US$ 20 bi figure is what would cost to process every Brazilian citizen DNA.

There is no doubt Mr. Mendonça wants to establish in Brazil this identity document, in order to fulfill his Nazi-Fasci fantasies.

MY DNA? NO WAY, YOU NAZI BASTARDS!

Brazilian Government wants to set up a National Identity Register

2006-06-25T11:40:00.000-07:00

Lula Governemnt really wants to set up a National Identity Register (BrNIR) just like the one which is to be operative by 2008 in Britain. In its Annual Message to the Congress, the Government says such a Register will help out combating rampant criminality levels in Brazil, caused by lengthy criminal justice system, lax sentencing, poor evidence analysis and so on.

So far, Department of Federal Police (DPF) has spent £42 mi establishing an AFIS for state and federal criminal records. DPF wants to use this system as a base for the National Identity Register, which shall be called as "Unique Civil Identity Register". Luckily, DPF has "enough" money to spent on measures curbing individual privacy rights and, even lucklier, has never defaulted phone bills and its very own precincts' lease.

This measure is only one of several measures proposed by Lula government to halt criminal intent. BrNIR is similar to another failed measure: Gun Sales Ban and its stupid referendum.

Food stamp database was used by Workers' Party

2006-06-25T07:22:00.000-07:00

Sunday's Folha de S.Paulo newspaper reports Workers' Party (PT) have accessed the Bolsa-Família (a federal food stamp program) in order to "invite" seven persons affiliated to Bolsa-Família. Those data were supposed to be private and not to be used for political reasons.

House study reveals desire to control Internet access

2006-06-24T13:33:00.000-07:00

A Brazilian House of Representatives study shows there are 15 bills requiring registration of personal data, complete log of activities of email, ISPs, and publicily-available Internet access devices.

National DNA Database coming all the way from the Legislative Branch

2006-06-24T12:13:00.000-07:00

Hitler threw a party in Hell to salute two selected Brazilian congressmen:

Bill 7142/2006, sponsored by Congressman Carlos Manatto (PDT-ES)
Bill 6079/2002, sponsored by Congressman Feu Rosa (PP-ES)

Both bills are related to each other, therefore being referred to House committees as one bill. All links in this post head towards Portuguese-speaking pages.