RIO DE JANEIRO, Aug. 14 (Xinhua) -- Brazilian President Michel Temer on Tuesday signed a bill into law to regulate data collection from private citizens.
After an eight-year discussion on data protection measures, Congress approved the Data Protection Law unanimously in May, and the Senate in July. The new law will take effect after an 18-month transition period.
Brazil now joins a group of some 100 countries that have laws regulating how companies and the government collect data from private citizens and what they are allowed to do with the information collected.
Despite the approval, Temer vetoed some articles of the law. One of them was for establishing a National Data Protection Authority (ANPD) to monitor compliance with the law, establish secondary regulations and audit companies and the government.
Another vetoed article was for the implementation of a National Data Protection Council, which would have been in charge of proposing directives and strategies to the ANPD.
The original bill also had a provision for companies found collecting data illegally to be suspended, but Temer vetoed that article as well, claiming it would lead to legal insecurity.
He said the vetoes were due to a legal issue as regulatory agencies must be created by the executive and not Congress. He said the executive will create an agency similar to the one proposed in the articles.
