Internet & Online Safety · Brazil
Internet & Online Safety - Brazil
Brazil regulates online content and safety through a layered framework: the 2014 Marco Civil establishes baseline internet rights, intermediary rules and a notice-and-takedown regime, which the Supreme Court (STF) partially struck down in June 2025 to expand fault-based platform liability and impose DSA-style duties of care, transparency and local legal representation. A dedicated children's online-safety statute, the 'Digital ECA' (Law 15.211/2025, in force 17 March 2026), adds mandatory age-verification and youth-protection obligations enforced by the data-protection authority (ANPD). There is no single omnibus online-safety act akin to the EU DSA, but the combined in-force regime is comprehensive, and Congress has been urged to enact unifying legislation.
Law 12.965/2014 sets out internet civil rights, net neutrality, privacy and the original intermediary-liability rule (Art. 19), under which providers were liable for third-party content only after ignoring a specific court removal order.
On 26 June 2025 the Supreme Court ruled Art. 19 partially unconstitutional (8-3), creating a fault-based regime where platforms can be liable without a prior court order for serious illegal content (e.g. incitement, terrorism, child sexual abuse, anti-democratic acts), and may be liable for systemic failure to act on notifications.
The STF imposed governance duties inspired by the EU Digital Services Act: self-regulation with clear moderation rules and due process, annual transparency reports, accessible complaint channels, and a mandatory local legal representative in Brazil.
Law 15.211/2025, sanctioned 17 Sept 2025 and in force 17 March 2026, requires 'effective and reliable' age-verification (banning self-declaration alone), parental consent for under-16s, parental controls, bans on profiling-based ads and loot boxes targeting minors, and transparency reports.
The ANPD (data-protection authority) regulates and enforces the Digital ECA, with a regulatory decree (Decree 12.622/2025); sanctions range from warnings and fines up to R$50 million or 10% of Brazilian revenue, with platform suspension requiring a judicial decision.
No omnibus online-platform statute has passed; the broad 'Fake News Bill' (PL 2630) stalled in Congress, leaving the STF ruling as the operative platform-liability standard and prompting the Court to call on Congress to legislate, a gap likely to persist through the 2026 elections.
Machine-assisted translation · verified 5/23/2026 · orientation, not legal advice. English version →