- within Strategy, Transport and Accounting and Audit topic(s)
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On November 20, the Court of Justice of the Federal District and Territories decided, through an injunction, to suspend the sale of personal data of consumers by Serasa Experian. The decision was rendered in a Public Civil Action filed by the Special Data Protection and Artificial Intelligence Unit (Espec), member of the Public Prosecution of the Federal District and Territories (MPDFT).
According to Espec, Serasa Experian sells data of more than 150 million Brazilians for the purpose of advertising and customer prospecting for the price of BRL 0.98 per natural person. The commercialization takes place through the services "Online List" and "Customer Prospecting" and provides the purchaser with a list of data containing the individual's Taxpayer Registration Number, name, address, up to 3 phones and gender, being the client able to filter such information by gender, age, purchasing power, social class, location, affinity models and risk screening. Espec states that such data can be used for mass advertising during the 2020 Election, an activity that is been fought by the Superior Electoral Court.
We emphasize that for the majority of its activities, Serasa Experian has the legal support for the processing of data due to credit protection lawful basis, according to Article 7, item X of the Brazilian General Data Protection Law ("LGPD"). However, the services object of the claim filed by the MPDFT have no relation to credit protection, and should, therefore, have another lawful basis (among the ones established by the LGPD) to be processed. Article 7 of LGPD establishes ten lawful basis for the processing of personal data, which application shall be analyzed on ca case by case basis.
In this regard, the judge César Loyola, "evidenced the serious risk of injury caused by the unauthorized data sharing", granted the suspension of the services relating to the sale of personal data through the products "Online List" and "Customer Prospecting", under penalty of Serasa Experian being subject to fines in the amount of BRL 5,000.00 for each sale made by the services. The full decision can be accessed through the link.
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