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Title: Brazil Tests Letting Citizens Earn Money From Data in Their Digital
Footprint

Link: https://yro.slashdot.org/story/25/06/01/02222...

With over 200 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by
population. Now it's testing a program that will allow Brazilians "to manage,
own, and profit from their digital footprint," according to RestOfWorld.org -
"the first such nationwide initiative in the world." The government says it's
partnering with California-based data valuation/monetization firm DrumWave to
create "data savings account" to "transform data into economic assets, with
potential for monetization and participation in the benefits generated by
investing in technologies such as AI LLMs." But all based on "conscious and
authorized use of personal information." RestOfWorld reports: Today, "people
get nothing from the data they share," Brittany Kaiser, co-founder of the Own
Your Data Foundation and board adviser for DrumWave, told Rest of World.
"Brazil has decided its citizens should have ownership rights over their
data...." After a user accepts a company's offer on their data, payment is
cashed in the data wallet, and can be immediately moved to a bank account.
The project will be "a correction in the historical imbalance of the digital
economy," said Kaiser. Through data monetization, the personal data that
companies aggregate, classify, and filter to inform many aspects of their
operations will become an asset for those providing the data... Brazil's
project stands out because it brings the private sector and the government
together, "so it has a better chance of catching on," said Kaiser. In 2023,
Brazil's Congress drafted a bill that classifies data as personal property.
The country's current data protection law classifies data as a personal,
inalienable right. The new legislation gives people full rights over their
personal data - especially data created "through use and access of online
platforms, apps, marketplaces, sites and devices of any kind connected to the
web." The bill seeks to ensure companies offer their clients benefits and
financial rewards, including payment as "compensation for the collecting,
processing or sharing of data." It has garnered bipartisan support, and is
currently being evaluated in Congress... If approved, the bill will allow
companies to collect data more quickly and precisely, while giving users more
clarity over how their data will be used, according to Antonielle Freitas,
data protection officer at Viseu Advogados, a law firm that specializes in
digital and consumer laws. As data collection becomes centralized through
regulated data brokers, the government can benefit by paying the public to
gather anonymized, large-scale data, Freitas told Rest of World. These
databases are the basis for more personalized public services, especially in
sectors such as health care, urban transportation, public security, and
education, she said. This first pilot program involves "a small group of
Brazilians who will use data wallets for payroll loans," according to the
article - although Pedro Bastos, a researcher at Data Privacy Brazil, sees
downsides. "Once you treat data as an economic asset, you are subverting the
logic behind the protection of personal data," he told RestOfWorld. The data
ecosystem "will no longer be defined by who can create more trust and
integrity in their relationships, but instead, it will be defined by who's
the richest." Thanks to Slashdot reader applique for sharing the news.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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