Brazilian public data could end up in the hands of the private sector.

Nara Lacerda, Brazil of Fact - The bidding process to contract cloud-based public data storage services, valued at R$ 245 million, is seen by technology professionals as a risk to Brazilian sovereignty.

The government of Jair Bolsonaro defends the hiring of a private service, claiming that it meets the needs of 140 agencies and entities, with the use of the cloud representing savings in maintenance. However, workers in the public technology sector claim that the expertise of the Federal Data Processing Service (Serpro) and the Social Security Technology and Information Company (Dataprev) was not taken into consideration.

How the privatization of two state-owned companies puts the security of your data at risk.

Leonardo Nichelatti, an employee of Serpro, states that there is no lack of capacity in the two public companies, which have been repeatedly chosen as the best in the technology field in Latin America. According to him, the decision is political, not technical. The expert, who is the director of the Data Processing Workers Union in the state of Rio Grande do Sul, emphasizes that the risks of the process range from data breaches to information theft, including the deliberate removal of services from the internet for profit. 

“It’s as if you took your personal files, put them on a flash drive, and entrusted them to someone else for safekeeping. They have your data at their disposal,” warns Nichelatti.

"If you're not careful, someone could steal the flash drive, access your data, create a montage with your photos, prevent you from retrieving the flash drive unless you pay a ransom, or even hijack your data." 

"Now, imagine if that flash drive contained your biometric data, your and your company's tax information, all your suppliers, clients, and the value of purchase and sales invoices. The danger lies not only in the data but also in the state's essential services," he added.  

Why are companies like Amazon and Google interested in buying Serpro?

According to Nichelatti, the risk becomes more serious if the cloud service contracted is from international companies.

"It's even worse if the cloud is in a foreign country, because we could still suffer some kind of deliberate embargo. Imagine this being in a cloud in a foreign country, that country imposes an embargo, the company cuts off the service, and we lose tax revenue, our foreign trade is paralyzed. Imagine the chaos that this will cause here. I can't imagine you giving up your national sovereignty at a point like this unnecessarily."

State-owned company on Bolsonaro's privatization list is essential for emergency income.

This will be the second phase of implementing cloud computing services in the federal administration. The first phase, concerning data from 25 agencies, is expected to cost R$ 55 million. It is worth noting that, by law, Serpro and Dataprev cannot participate in these tenders. The data that is at risk of being moved to private clouds is currently stored in the data centers of the two state-owned companies, which have strict and highly controlled security systems.

Vera Guasso, general secretary of the Data Processing Workers Union in the state of Rio Grande do Sul, states that this is yet another attempt to weaken the operations of the two companies, in order to privatize them. 

“So far, what we've noticed is that these are contracts for extremely high-value cloud services, outside of the two main public IT companies in Latin America. If you're going to contract a giant cloud service, why would the data centers continue to exist? If it's outside of those two companies, what's the interest? Who has an interest? Who will control this? Who will migrate what's in the data center to the cloud?” asks Guasso. 

Bolsonaro will privatize a company that holds confidential data on all Brazilians.

She says there's a high possibility that the information will fall under the control of transnational companies that dominate the global data market. In her opinion, the bidding process is unlikely to benefit Brazilian entrepreneurs.

“It is an accelerated loss of the country's sovereignty and at the same time a gigantic risk, because these companies have commitments to pass on information to (foreign) governments, for example. We are heading down a path of loss of sovereignty. I would dare to use a term from Professor Sergio Amadeu, who speaks of Brazil becoming a digital colony,” he states. 

The workers are preparing a complaint to be filed with the Federal Court of Accounts. In addition, the PSOL party in the Chamber of Deputies has formally requested information from the Ministry of Economy.