Brazil plans on storing its data locally, may threaten global internet per experts

rnw.nl reported Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, a staunch opponent of US mass surveillance, garnered praise for her initiatives against mass Internet monitoring on the international stage. But a plan included in a national law that would force Internet companies to store Brazilian data within the country’s borders has been much less popular. Internet experts fear the consequences for a truly global Internet.

Over the past months, the Brazilian government has been exceptionally vocal in its criticism of US mass surveillance. In September, Rousseff canceled a visit to Washington in protest against American spying, and instead traveled to New York to condemn US surveillance practices at the UN. Since then, the Brazilian government announced it will host an international Internet governance summit in 2014, put forward a UN resolution on online privacy, and accelerated work on a national bill of Internet rights called the Marco Civil.

But a plan to nationalize data centers, which was tacked onto the Marco Civil, worries Internet experts, who believe it goes against both the interests of the global Internet and Brazilian Internet users. Read Article