InternetLab

InternetLab report reveals expansion of facial recognition in Brazillian schools

caitlinb — Mon, 20 Jul 2026 09:54:47 +0000

InternetLab report reveals expansion of facial recognition in Brazillian schools caitlinb Monday, July 20, 2026

InternetLab have found a significant increase in the rollout of facial recognition across Brazillian's state schools.

Their 2023 report found that just 1 state, of those that responded to them, had deployed the technology, along with 9 states' municipal schools. In 2025 this number has significantly increased, with the technology now being used in 7 states. This is of the 18 that responded to freedom of information requests - a further 8 states did not respond and so cannot be included in the numbers.

InternetLab found serious problems with the regulatory environment, the safeguards in place, the understanding of the technology, and the transparency with which is has been rolled out.

Link to article

Writer: Helena Secaf, Danielle Bello and Danyelle Reis

Publisher: InternetLab

Location

Brazil

More about our partner

InternetLab

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EdTech: Surveillance Tracker

Facial recognition

Date

Monday, February 2, 2026

Open Letter to Facebook and Google

tech-admin — Thu, 28 Jan 2021 15:49:02 +0000

Target Profile

Google

Facebook

Audiences and Purpose

Influence key stakeholders

Change

We campaign for solutions

We are building a global movement

Content

Advocacy

Summary

Privacy International is part of a 60+ coalition calling on Facebook and Google to provide equal and better transparency regarding political advertising on their platforms globally.

Media

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Key points

We believe it is necessary for both Google and Facebook to:

Accelerate the expansion of full transparency tools to all countries where you operate to ensure that the least favoured countries benefit from the same level of transparency as the most favoured countries
Develop, and make public, a plan of action setting out commitments and related timescales to roll out full transparency tools globally
Disclose the full array of criteria, both past and present, used to select countries qualifying for higher transparency standards

This letter is also available in Spanish.

Dear Mr. Zuckerberg and Mr. Pichai,

In the past few years, you have pioneered important transparency tools to help your platform users understand, learn about and contextualise the political advertising they see. We agree that advertiser verification processes and ad repositories are key safeguards against online manipulation and misinformation. However, we are saddened to observe that these benefits have not been equally distributed among your global user base.
Each platform operates fluctuating and often widely differing transparency standards for different countries. While some users benefit from seeing political advertising in an ad repository, others do not. Where some users are offered detailed information about a political ad, others are not. There are no legitimate or otherwise publicly disclosed reasons justifying this difference in treatment.
The combined effect of these inconsistent policies is to create a two-tiered user base within each platform, with a wide regulatory gap separating the transparency haves and have-nots. We first highlighted these problems in 2019. While some progress has been made since, we are disappointed to conclude that the transparency divide persists.
Online transparency should not be a privilege of the few, but the right of all. To that end, the changes we believe are necessary are as follows:

Accelerate the expansion of full transparency tools to all countries where you operate to ensure that the least favoured countries benefit from the same level of transparency as the most favoured countries
Develop, and make public, a plan of action setting out commitments and related timescales to roll out full transparency tools globally
Disclose the full array of criteria, both past and present, used to select countries qualifying for higher transparency standards

The above changes, which we believe to be fair and reasonable, are only a starting point to begin to correct the current platform-created inequality between users. By contrast, the benefits are conclusive: heightened transparency standards for millions of users worldwide, and increased legitimacy of online political advertising for the sake of fair and informed decision-making by voters.
We urge you to take responsibility as two of the most influential platforms in online political campaigning, and empower users and voters with heightened ads transparency.

Yours sincerely,

Access Now
Africa Freedom of Information Centre (AFIC)
Aliansi Jurnalis Independen/Alliance of Independent Journalists (AJI)
Amnesty International
ApTI
Article 19
Artículo 19 México y Centroamérica
Asociación por los Derechos Civiles
Asociación para una Ciudadanía Participativa, ACI Participa
Associação Data Privacy Brasil de Pesquisa
Asociación para el Progreso de las Comunicaciones (APC)
Association for International Affairs (AMO) in Prague
Association pour le Developpement Integré et la Solidarité Interactive (ADISI-C)
Citizen D
Centre for Independent Journalism Malaysia (CIJ-M)
Collaboration on International ICT Policy for East and Southern Africa (CIPESA)
Civil Liberties Union for Europe
Bytes for All (B4A)
Datos Protegidos
Defend Democracy
Dejusticia
Democracy Reporting International (DRI)
Derechos Digitales
Digital Rights Foundation
ELSAM
Electronic Frontier Finland
Electronic Frontier Norway
epicenter.works
EU Disinfo Lab
Fundación Acceso
Fundación Huaira de Quito-Ecuador
Fundación Internet Bolivia
Fundación Karisma
Freedom Forum
Free Media Movement (FMM)
Global Forum for Media Development
Global Witness
Hiperderecho
Homo Digitalis
Instituto Brasileiro de Defesa do Consumidor
InternetLab
Intervozes - Coletivo Brasil de Comunicação Social
IPANDETEC Centroamérica
Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL)
Laboratorio de Datos y Sociedad (DATYSOC)
Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA)
Media Institute of Southern Africa MISA- Zimbabwe
Media Matters for Democracy
Merit Legal Advocacy & Human Rights Initiative (MELAHRI)
OBSERVACOM
Paradigm Initiative (PIN)
Privacy International
R3D: Red en Defensa de los Derechos Digitales
SFLC.in
Stiftung Neue Verantwortung (SNV)
Sursiendo, Comunicación y Cultura Digital AC
TEDIC
The Tor Project
Unwanted Witness
Usuarios Digitales
Venezuela Inteligente
Who Targets Me
World Wide Web Foundation
Xnet

Repeating Image and Text

More about our partner

La Asociación por los Derechos Civiles

The Association for Civil Rights (ADC) is a non-governmental organisation based in Buenos Aires that promotes civil and social rights in Argentina and other Latin American countries. It was founded in 1995 with the aim of fostering a legal and institutional culture to guarantee fundamental rights, based on respect for the constitution and democratic values.

Country of Operation

Argentina

Region of Operation

Latin America

Website

Asociación por los Derechos Civiles

Dejusticia

The Center for Law, Justice and Society (Dejusticia) is a Colombia-based NGO that works to strengthen the rule of law and promote human rights in Colombia and across the developing world. It produces research to contribute to action for social change, and carries out advocacy through campaigns, litigation, education and capacity-building.

Country of Operation

Colombia

Region of Operation

Latin America

Website

Dejusticia

Derechos Digitales

Founded in 2005, Derechos Digitales is a non-profit organisation based in Chile that works across Latin America. Its main objective is the development, defense and promotion of human rights in the digital environment. Its work focuses on issues around freedom of expression, privacy and personal data, and copyright and access to knowledge.

Country of Operation

Chile

Region of Operation

Latin America

Website

Derechos Digitales

Digital Rights Foundation

Digital Rights Foundation (DRF) is a research and advocacy NGO based in Pakistan that focuses on how Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) can support human rights, democratic processes and digital governance. It works towards a world where all people, and especially women, are able to safely exercise their right of expression.

Country of Operation

Pakistan

Region of Operation

Asia

Website

DRF

Fundación Karisma

Founded in 2003, Fundación Karisma is a civil society organisation dedicated to supporting and disseminating the good use of technologies in digital environments, social processes and public policies in Colombia and the region, with a human rights focus. It also undertakes legal and technological activism in coalitionwith local, regional and international partners.

Country of Operation

Colombia

Region of Operation

Latin America

Website

Fundación Karisma

Hiperderecho

Hiperderecho is a non-profit Peruvian organisation dedicated to facilitating public understanding and promoting respect for rights and freedoms in digital environments. It seeks to spread the liberating capacity of technology to develop or enhance digital spaces so that all Peruvians can exercise their rights and strengthen their citizenship.

Country of Operation

Peru

Region of Operation

Latin America

Website

Hiperderecho

InternetLab

InternetLab is an independent research center that aims to foster academic debate around issues involving law and technology, especially internet policy. Our goal is to conduct interdisciplinary impactful research and promote dialogue among academics, professionals and policymakers. We follow an entrepreneurial nonprofit model, which embraces our pursuit of producing scholarly research in the manner and spirit of an academic think tank. As a nexus of expertise in technology, public policy and social sciences, our research agenda covers a wide range of topics, including privacy, freedom of speech, gender and technology.

Country of Operation

Brazil

Region of Operation

Latin America

Website

InternetLab

Red en Defensa de los Derechos Digitales

The Red en Defensa de los Derechos Digitales (R3D) is a Mexican organisation dedicated to the defence of human rights in the digital environment. It uses various legal and communication tools for policy research, strategic litigation, and advocacy and campaigns, with particular attention to freedom of expression, privacy, and access to knowledge.

Country of Operation

Mexico

Region of Operation

Latin America

Website

Red en Defensa de los Derechos Digitales

La Asociación de Tecnología, Educación, Desarrollo, Investigación, Comunicación (TEDIC)

La Asociación de Tecnología, Educación, Desarrollo, Investigación, Comunicación (TEDIC) is a Paraguayan non-governmental organisation that develops open civic technology, supported by its work in communications and alternative advocacy. It also promotes and defends digital rights in favour of a free Internet culture, with the aim of establishing a collaborative society where digital rights are exercised and respected.

Country of Operation

Paraguay

Region of Operation

Latin America

Website

TEDIC

The Institute for Policy Research and Advocacy (ELSAM)

The Institute for Policy Research and Advocacy (ELSAM) is a civil society organisation that works to enhance the democratic political order in Indonesia by empowering civil society. Founded in 1993, it actively participates in efforts to promote human rights through policy and legal research, advocacy, and training.

Country of Operation

Indonesia

Region of Operation

Asia

Website

ELSAM

Unwanted Witness

Founded in 2012, Unwanted Witness is a Ugandan-based civil society organisation that seeks to create secure, uncensored online platforms for human rights activists. It aims to contribute to good governance through effective online activism, networking and capacity-building. It also advocates for the strengthening of mechanisms related to freedom of expression and accountability.

Country of Operation

Uganda

Region of Operation

Africa

Website

Unwanted Witness

Our campaign

PI is campaigning for 1) platforms to give all users heightened ad transparency and 2) for transparency into targeting and funding of ads to be meaningful.

The role of social media and search platforms in political campaigning and elections has come under scrutiny. Concerns range from the spread of disinformation, to profiling of users without their knowledge, to micro-targeting of users with tailored messages, to interference by foreign entities, and more. Significant attention has been paid to the transparency of political ads, and more broadly to the transparency of online ads.

Notably, in the lead up to the 2019 EU Parliamentary elections Facebook, Google, and Twitter, as well as the Interactive Advertising Bureau and others, agreed to take a series of steps to prevent online disinformation on their respective platforms. These measures are reflected in a self-regulatory Code of Practice on Disinformation and the companies provided the European Commission with monthly updates on their progress.

PI is campaigning for 1) platforms to give all users heightened ad transparency and 2) for transparency into targeting and funding of ads to be meaningful.

Learn more

Democratic engagement is increasingly mediated by digital technology, from campaigning to election results transmission. These technologies rely on collecting, storing, and analysing personal information to operate. They raise novel issues and challenges for all electoral stakeholders on how to protect our data from exploitation.

Regulamentação de propaganda política online no Brasil

staff — Fri, 22 Jan 2021 10:49:22 +0000

Regulamentação de propaganda política online no Brasil

The regulation of online political ads in Brazil

staff — Wed, 20 Jan 2021 16:31:58 +0000

The regulation of online political ads in Brazil

Brazil’s Bolsa Familia Program: the impact on privacy rights

staff — Wed, 13 May 2020 10:01:59 +0000

Brazil’s Bolsa Familia Program: the impact on privacy rights staff Wednesday, May 13, 2020

This article has been written by our partner organisation InternetLab. Read this article in Portuguese here.

Over the last months, the organisation InternetLab has researched privacy, data protection, gender, and social protection, focusing on the beneficiaries of the Bolsa Familia Program (PBF). The PBF is the most extensive Brazilian cash transfer program, and its functioning is linked to CadÚnico, a database that comprises 40% of the country’s population. Moreover, it is a program whose beneficiaries are mostly women (approximately 90%) due to the policy’s own design, and which, in the last years, has been one of the most disputed issues in Brazil, both in terms of politics and public debate. The (lack of) privacy experienced by this segment of the population deserves special attention due to their vulnerable socioeconomic condition and also to the gender aspect involved in the privacy-related harms or losses.

Focalized, conditional, 20% of Brazilian population: what we already know about PBF

Bolsa Familia is a conditional cash transfer program that currently reaches 13.1 million families or 40.8 million people. The main selection criterium is the family income, and the eligibility is defined in two lines: the extreme poverty, characterized by the monthly per capita income of up to R$ 89 ($ 17,55), and the poverty, characterized by the household income per capita between R$89,01 and R$ 178 ($ 35,10) .

The program’s purpose is the immediate relief of extreme poverty and the provision of conditions to overcome socioeconomic vulnerability, as well as to break the intergenerational transmission of poverty. In addition to the direct cash transfer and the monitoring of health and education conditionalities, the program relies on the coordination with other policies to achieve these goals.

Data, what for?

The main database used for selecting beneficiaries and managing the program is called CadÚnico (Unified Registry for Social Programs of the Federal Government). Created in 2001 and connected to the management of PBF in 2003, CadÚnico is an instrument of identification and socioeconomic characterization of low-income Brazilian families. It serves not just PBF, but more than thirty public policies.

CadÚnico contains information such as housing conditions, personal identification, level of literacy and education, work situation and income and whether the family belongs to traditional and specific groups. Together, they form a set of referential data about the most impoverished population in Brazil: 76.417.354 people, according to data of December 2019. It is through CadÚnico that the automated selection of the beneficiaries is processed.

In addition to the registration and selection process, PBF deploys informatized systems that make it possible to manage the program at different levels of the federation and allow for the collection and integration of data related to the monitoring of conditionalities. The conditionalities are requirements assumed by the beneficiaries in order to be granted the benefits, and they consist of school attendance as well as immunization, prenatal care, and nutritional monitoring of children. A great amount of personal data, including sensitive ones, informs, thus, PBF. The execution of crucial policy processes depends on the intensive processing of personal data: the examination of eligibility criteria, the implementation of targeting mechanisms, the granting and payment of benefits, and the monitoring of conditionalities.

The program also comprises periodic evaluation of permanence conditions through a continuous update and cadastral verification. The families are required to update their registers annually or in case of any changes in their data. The cadastral verification is carried out by cross-checking CadÚnico with other federal databases.

According to interviews with members of the Office of the Comptroller General and records of the Monitoring and Evaluation Committee for Federal Public Policies (CMAP), the frequency of these crossings has increased lately. “Until 2016, the action was annual (…); since 2017, the procedure started to be performed during the fiscal year, on a routine basis, distributing the new information all over the year to be addressed by the municipal managers, thereby facilitating their dynamics” (Miranda Alves Pereira, 2018).

Besides, the selection, which formerly depended on self-declared information, has been automatically filtered – for instance, the impediment of qualifying families with a member who, not having declared income to CadÚnico, is listed in the RAIS/CAGED base (Miranda Alves Pereira, 2018). The intensification of these control proceedings finds relation to budgetary and financial restrictions resulting from the New Fiscal Regime, approved in 2016 (EC 95/2016). The new regime established a cap on public spending. Consequently, it imposed cost savings, the reduction in the number and rigid controls on individuals benefiting from government welfare or public pension systems.

Under scrutiny: public resources, vulnerable beneficiaries

The information that feeds CadÚnico is declared by the primary person responsible for the family unit, who must be over 16 years and preferably female. The family representative is also the priority benefit holder. The female priority is upheld by law and, according to policy analysts, direct transfer to women favours the use of cash transfers within families (Bartolo, Fountoura, Passos, 2017). Official data indicates that currently 88.5% households are represented by women (Senarc, set. De 2019).

Many scholars seek to understand the effects of prioritising women as a way of ensuring the effectiveness of public policies. Some of them point out that, regardless of the adequacy of such decisions, gender stereotypes manifest themselves in the respective inspection and social control mechanisms.

The complaints presented by citizens to the Ombudsman’s Offices allow for a fruitful investigation of these conceptions. Although not so frequent and not very expressive in terms of effectively leading to the cancelling of benefits, they reflect in a very particular way some perceptions on the beneficiaries of the program. They are therefore crucial for the understanding of control dynamics that may be imperceptible through the analysis of the policy design itself. To analyse these complaints (obtained via a request to access information, according to Access to Information Act proceeding), we have built a dialogue with other research efforts. An expressive body of literature has focused on the effects of public policies on the sociability of beneficiaries, as well as on the morals constructed either socially or in the face of state bureaucracy (Marins, 2017; Milanezi, 2019).

The complaints are mostly motivated by citizens’ perceptions that some people should not receive the benefit as a result of their income. Complainants refer to beneficiaries having cars, properties, or even a salary (for the most part, by the way, close to the national minimum). Other frequent causes for complaints are related to the family structure (custody and domicile of the children, for example), and pattern of expenditure (complainants describe in detail how the beneficiaries fail to direct the resources to their children or spend it in a way considered superfluous). These complaints express an evaluation on the “legitimate beneficiaries”, which involves gender stereotypes. For example, the judgment on who the "good" and "bad" mothers are, and the strengthening of the bond between female identity and the ethos of motherhood (for conclusions in the same direction, see studies by Marins, 2017, and Bartolo, Fountoura, Passos, 2017).

From a data protection perspective, it is relevant to note that about 60% of the complaints contained personal information from the beneficiaries, including taxpayer registry number (CPF), mother's name and the social security identification number (known as NIS).

Even if the beneficiary’s name, the social security identification number, and the benefit value are, in fact, considered public data by the Brazilian government, how are citizens other than the beneficiaries able to grasp access to these data? We have identified at least four paths.

The social security identification number of any citizen can be accessed on the “Citizen Space – CadÚnico”, a government's official website, by inserting the name, birth date, mother’s name, and the beneficiary’s city. It is also possible, in possession of the name, NIS and CPF, to access the benefit status on the Caixa Econômica Federal’s website. In the Transparency Portal, it is also possible to find, sorting by the municipality, the name of the beneficiary, social security identification number, and the benefit value. In addition to those, there is an extra-official public application through which some of these data can be accessed: the BolsaFamilia.Info. Through this portal, built by a private party aiming “to eliminate the fraudsters from the program”, it is possible to access the full name, social security identification number, benefits' values, merely by defining the state and municipality of the beneficiary.

Given the above, several questions can be raised about the legal basis and the proportionality of the exposure to which beneficiaries of the PBF are subjected.

The Bolsa Familia Act, in fact, establishes that the “list of beneficiaries and the respective benefit value shall be publicly accessible”. The decree that regulates it provides that the Social Control Council must have access to PBF data and information and also that the list of beneficiaries of the PBF should be widely disclosed by the Municipal and Federal District governments.

The Access to Information Act is, furthermore, another instrument that, in terms of active transparency, establishes that information of public interest must be disclosed regardless of requests (art. 3, II). It also determines that personal information can be released by the government, when consented (art. 31, II), by overriding public interest (art. 31, §3º, V), or, yet, when irregularities are at stake.

In the case of the PBF payroll, the disclosure of personal data seems to be taken as a measure of active transparency, according to the Bolsa Família Act and its Decree. These measures, although legal, are under possible tension with the General Data Protection Act (enacted in 2018, coming into force later this year), exceed the specific obligations established in the Access to Information Act, and fail to meet requirements of necessity and proportionality.

After all, a broad disclosure of these data involves risks already materialised. Last year, a scam spread through Whatsapp messages installed viruses on devices of beneficiaries, by offering a link that promised an additional benefit, the 13th month-pay. Something similar occurred in 2018: During the last presidential elections, it was found out that a candidate was sending propaganda directed specifically to the program beneficiaries, by WhatsApp as well.

Although the management of PBF involves several agencies at different levels of the federation, its functioning provides generous sharing and control strategies, which calls into question the necessity for a frequent, active and general disclosure of this information to the public.

Alerts and Developments

The study is still in the research and writing phase. Some alerts are already in place, however.

Advances in technology and the increased data processing capabilities allow for more constant collection, validation, and sharing of information among government bodies. The accounts from our interviewees also point to an expectation of efficiency increase, and the improvement in the focalization of the policy – which, although frequently questioned, is an essential feature of PBF since its inception.

Especially in the face of the imminent coming to force of the Brazilian General Data Protection Act, we seek to address some of the eventual systemic problems that may arise in such a context. For instance, the excessive data collection; the opacity of systems and infrastructure; the lack of openness, inclusiveness, and transparency in the decision-making process; flawed accountability mechanisms and security. The latter is exacerbated by the number of agents and bodies processing these data (be it to render services, to implement policies, or to inspect activities), by inadequate data protection safeguards, and the vulnerable position in which beneficiaries encounter themselves. Issues about data sharing and its use for non-specific, unforeseen and uninformed purposes also arise, such as we have discussed at the time of publication of the Decree on the Base Registry.

The interdependent nature of human rights and the necessity to embody privacy protection on social protection systems is, in this context, particularly important. We base our next step on this premise. Women on situations of poverty and extreme poverty, possibly relatively more threatened by more on and offline surveillance and data exploitation, should not have to choose between privacy and social protection, food security, or a benefit that after all alleviates, but does not eliminate poverty (Souza et al; 2019:10).

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Poverty

Our fight

Safeguarding Peoples' Dignity

Realise Our Rights to Live with Dignity

More about our partner

InternetLab

Our campaign

When Big Brother Pays Your Benefits

Protecting People

Type of abuse

Benefits claimants

Change

We are building a global movement

Content

Impact

Reports

Media

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Summary

Our partner organisation InternetLab has been researching the Bolsa Familia Program and its consequences for gender and privacy, here are the first results.

Key findings

Bolsa Familia is a conditional cash transfer program that currently reaches 13.1 million families or 40.8 million people.
InternetLab is conducting research to understand how the data processing may be affecting the populations that are benefitting from the programme.
Advances in technology and the increased data processing capabilities allow for more constant collection, validation, and sharing of information among government bodies. The accounts from their interviewees also point to an expectation of efficiency increase.
With the future coming into force of the Brazilian General Data Protection Act, the excessive data collection; the opacity of systems and infrastructure; the lack of openness, inclusiveness, and transparency in the decision-making process; flawed accountability mechanisms and security all need to be addressed urgently.