Researchers Reveal Loose Laws on Data and Surveillance in Latin America Cora Currier - The Intercept
go to original October 13, 2016

The laws in many Latin American countries haven’t kept pace with the increasing power of surveillance technology, creating the potential for serious abuses, according to a new report from a privacy watchdog.

Despite recent revelations of widespread use of spyware capable of infiltrating phones and computers by many governments in the region - including in some instances, against political opposition and journalists - not a single Latin American country surveyed in the report has specific laws on the use of such invasive technology. Many countries, including Brazil, Colombia, Chile and Mexico, require companies to log detailed data on their customers and give law enforcement access to the information on demand. Colombia has a ban on encryption, and El Salvador requires communications providers to decrypt traffic at the government’s demand.

The report, written by researchers for the San Francisco-based Electronic Frontier Foundation, looked at surveillance laws in 12 countries in Central and South America. It opens with a stark reminder of what is at stake: A history of the collaboration among military dictatorships in Argentina, Chile, Paraguay, Bolivia, Uruguay and Brazil in the 1970s and 80s known as “Operation Condor.” Files discovered later documented torture, disappearances, imprisonment and executions, enabled through a regime of informants and surveillance.

Many intelligence agencies in the region were formed under these military dictatorships, and even after transitioning to democratic rule, most Latin American countries maintained strong executive branch powers “without well-placed controls or public oversight mechanisms.” Given the power vested in many presidents in the region, the report says, “intelligence agencies in Latin America have been powerful tools in presidential politics, specially used to spy on dissident groups, opposition politicians or independent journalists.”

...While Mexico’s Supreme Court recently put some safeguards on the country’s data retention law, limiting who could access the information, Paraguay was the only country EFF found that had rejected data retention policies entirely.

Read the rest at The Intercept

Related: ACLU Claims Police Keeping a Close Eye on Social Media Through Surveillance Systems (Mexico Star)

Related: How Spy Tech Firms Let Governments See Everything on a Smartphone (The New York Times)

Related: FCC Proposal: Internet Providers Must Ask to Share Your Data (Daily Mail)

Image: Mexico Star

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