An out-of-court conflict resolution system for simpler cases of unauthorized use of personal data, leaving the most complex cases to the courts, is what the participants of the webinar “Impacts of LGPD — General Data Protection Law — on the Judiciary, an event promoted by ABPI on July 3rd. The speakers were Mário Viola, Project Coordinator in the Law Area of ITS-Rio (Institute of Technology and Society), and Christian Perrone, Public Policy consultant and senior researcher at ITS-Rio, mediated by Marcela Trigo and Fábio Pereira, coordinators of ABPI’s Dispute Resolution Study Committee.
The speakers agreed that, with the new legislation, there is a risk of a flood of lawsuits for unauthorized use of data. Viola noted that the Brazilian judicial system, with more than 80 million lawsuits in progress, has one of the largest legal liabilities in the world and is not prepared to meet the legal demand that will come in the wake of the LGPD.
Perrone exemplified that South Korea has had its data protection law since the beginning of the decade. To restrain “the first wave of the tsunami”, that is, the volume of lawsuits that followed the entry into force of the legislation, the Korean authorities adopted a system that separates the types of litigation of this nature. One of them, for simpler and more routine cases, consists of answering complaints by telephone, seeking mediation for a solution negotiated between the parties. On another front, an “official board” was set up to judge the most complex cases. “We will have to separate the wheat from the chaff and establish an alternative conflict resolution system, leaving Justice with more space and technical capacity to solve the most complex cases”, said Perrone.
Other uncertainties surround the future Brazilian data protection legislation. On June 29th, the Act nº 71/2020 of the President of the National Congress extended the validity of Provisional Measure nº 959/2020 for a period of 60 days, therefore postponing the beginning of the entry in force of the General Data Protection Law (Law 13.709/2018) until May 3rd, 2021. If the Congress does not convert the Provisional Measure into law, it will lose its effectiveness, and article 65 of the LGPD might return to its current wording, which provided for its entry into force on August 16th, 2020. Furthermore, the due date for application of administrative sanctions was extended to August 1st, 2021, following Law 14,010 promulgated on June 10th this year.
Watch the full webinar on the ABPI’s YouTube Channel.
