While some regular visitors to the blog offer the occasional grumble about Big Brother Watch's reporting on events the United Kingdom, we make no apologies for highlighting encroachments on freedom and civil liberties, wherever they occur.
On 1st January, Brazilian President Luis Inácio "Lula" da Silva left office, handing power to his hand-picked successor and former Chief of Staff Dilma Rousseff. The former shoe-shine boy left office with approval ratings close to 90% and a series of achievements in the sphere of poverty-reduction that have been widely praised by those across the ideological divide.
Sadly, one of Lula's final acts as President of Brazil was to unveil a new Civil Identity Registry to replace the country's current ID card system. While the existing Brazilian scheme is relatively poorly enforced, the same cannot be said for the new cards announced by the outgoing Lula administration:
"All Brazilians will each be registered under a unique national number, which will avoid registration of individuals in more than one state. The card will come with a chip containing the person's fingerprints, Internal Revenue Service number, and voter card number; information on gender, nationality, date of birth, and filiation; and photograph, signature, and issuing registrar"
Having toiled under an oppressive military dictatorship for decades up to 1985, there are few in Brazil that can recall a time when the Police were not able to summarily demand members of the public produce ID cards on request.
The country is, however, firmly civil libertarian in nature with the increasingly middle-class population demanding more transparency in government, privacy laws and protections against the power of the country's police force.
It's high time the fight against ID cards took hold. Brazilians, Big Brother Watch is here to help... Please do contact us.
By Daniel Hamilton.
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