Business Ethics & Corporate Crime Research Universidade de São Paulo
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Hotlines, Fragmented Databases and the -very special- Brazilian case

Author: Carolina Christofoletti

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If it is the Brazilian Federal Police who is receiving International Training on matters of CSAM, why are some CSAM hotline (SaferNet Brasil) cases being investigated by the Federal Prosecution Office, rather than by Brazilian Federal Police?

No doubt, this is, at least, a weird scenario. If, according to Art. 1, III of Brazilian 10.446 Statute (of 8 May 2002) it belongs to the Federal Police the investigation of crimes against human rights which Brazil had committed to repress under international treaties, why was the Cooperation Agreements of 2006 and 2007 (still in force) signed between SaferNet Brasil and the Federal Prosecution Office, rather than with the Federal Police?

Despite that, as SaferNet Brasil website properly says, their reports are being exclusively sent to the Federal Prosecution Office in cases where the Mutual Cooperation Agreement exist. This is the case for 6 Brazilian States (SP, RS, GO, PB, PR, RJ), each one with its own Prosecution Office.

But such Agreements do, most of the time, not exist. In fact, they do not exist for 21 States, where things still end up in the Federal Police. That is how the ‘big picture’ view is fragmented in Brazil. Ask SaferNet Brasil why!

Even though a Cooperation Agreement of 27 November 2008 between SaferNet Brasil and the Brazilian Federal Police for referrals exists, this agreement is only valid for cases where there is no Mutual Agreement signed with the State Federal Prosecution Offices and for cases where the reports are coming from one specific channels (SEDH), which is something other than SaferNet’s report main page. (Cláusulas 4 e 5).

In fact, SaferNet even displays those SEDH data separately on their portal.

As such, the data exists or should exist.

Questions to think about:

a) When we move the CSAM national hotline data (SaferNet Brasil) outside the national database of CSAM crimes, do we actually centralize or decentralize the intelligence basis with that?

b) Supposing that Federal or even Civil Police has started, internally, a CSAM operation. How low is the chance that this coming-from-the-police data will be ever crossed with coming-from-the0hotline data, in cases where data is coming from States where such Mutual Agreements were signed?