Knowing how to respond to requests from authorities in other countries is far from straightforward. The types of requests and possible response paths are varied and often complex, particularly for companies founded and grown in different regulatory environments. In Brazil, this landscape is further shaped by a legal framework that provides strong protection for privacy and data secrecy.

The Brazilian Constitution guarantees fundamental rights to privacy, private life, and the secrecy of correspondence and communications to Brazilian citizens and foreign residents alike. These protections are reinforced by the Brazilian Internet Act (Statute #12,965/2014,“MCI”), which sets out the principles, rights, and duties governing the use of the internet in Brazil and defines, in specific terms, the limits and conditions under which public authorities may access data.

In this context, it is essential to understand what information may be disclosed, under which circumstances, and subject to which legal requirements. With this objective, Licks Attorneys has prepared a document to help international digital platforms understand how these types of requests are structured in Brazil.

The document also addresses the distinction between emergency and non-emergency requests, as well as the requirements that make a request valid under the Brazilian Internet Act, such as the requesting authority’s jurisdiction, the legal basis invoked, and the specific identification of the user. In addition, it covers data preservation requests, exceptional circumstances for information disclosure, and the rules applicable to user notification.