The draft bill proposition for a Civil Right?s Based Framework for Internet in Brazil has just reached Congress. The English translation of this version is available here.

It is the result of an initiative from the Brazilian Ministry of Justice, in partnership with the Center for Technology and Society of the Getulio Vargas Foundation (CTS/FGV), to develop a collaborative online/offline consultation process in which all the actors from Brazilian society could identify together the rights and responsibilities that should guide the use of the Internet in Brazil. The process, which resulted in a Bill of Law, is an example of the importance and the great potential of multistakeholder involvement on policy-making.

NGOs, universities, internet service providers (collectively though associations, as well as individually), business companies, law firms, law enforcement agencies, individuals, Brazilian Embassies from all over the world, and many other participants have joined the online public hearing. The participation of several stakeholder groups has promoted the diversity of opinions and the availability of high quality information and expert advise, which have helped the government to draft a balanced bill. The openness and transparency of the process, entirely conducted online, in the public eye, has improved the legitimacy of the bill. Marco Civil was introduced in Congress with the political weight and the legitimacy that the Bill would be expected to have after a complex multistakeholder discussion.

I ? safeguarding freedom of speech, communication, and manifestation of thought, in the terms of the Constitution;

II ? the protection of privacy;

III ? the protection of personal data, in accordance to the law;

IV ? the preservation and safeguarding of net neutrality, in compliance with further regulation;

Article 9. The party responsible for the transmission, switching or routing of data has the obligation of granting equal treatment to every data package, with no distinction by content, origin and destination, service, terminal or application; any traffic discrimination or degradation that does not arise out of the technical requirements necessary to the adequate provision of services is prohibited, in accordance to further regulation.

Article 7. Access to the Internet is essential for the exercise of citizenship, and the following rights are secured to its users:

I ? the non-violation and secrecy of communications on the Internet, except under judicial order, in the hypotheses and form established by law, for criminal investigations or the gathering of evidence for criminal procedures;

II ? the non suspension of Internet connections, except for debts directly related to their use;

Article 10. The storage and disclosure of the connection logs and Internet application access logs regulated by this law must preserve intimacy, private life, the reputation and image of the parties directly or indirectly involved.

§1 The Internet service provider responsible for the storage of logs will only be constrained to disclose the information that allows the identification of the user under a judicial order

Article 14. Internet connection providers shall not be responsible for damage arising from content generated by third parties.

Article 15. Except otherwise established by law, Internet application providers can only be responsible for the damages caused by content generated by third parties if, after receiving a specific judicial order, they do not take action to, in the context of their services and under the established time frame, make unavailable the infringing content.

Article 17. Interested parties may, for the purpose of gathering evidence in civil and criminal proceedings, of either accidental or autonomous nature, request a judge to order the party responsible for storing Internet service access logs, or connection logs, to disclose these logs.

Sole Paragraph. Without prejudice of other legal requirements, the application shall contain, under penalty of not being admissible:

I ? solid evidence of the occurrence of an illegal act;

II ? a motivated justification for the utility of accessing the requested logs, for the purposes of investigation or the gathering of evidence;

III – the period that the logs refer to.

Article 18. It is the obligation of judges to take the measures necessary to guarantee the secrecy of the information received, and the preservation of the intimacy, private life, honor and image of Internet users. Judges are capable, for that purpose, to constitute the information as secret, including with respect to requests for the storage of logs.