Technology can help 3 million Brazilians without civil registration

Technology can be a way to integrate the 3 million Brazilians into society, who, without civil registration, do not have access to basic rights.

The condition, the focus of this September 16, International Identity Day, goes beyond psychological and emotional issues. It means not being able to have a formal job and face difficulties in getting care at a health center, for example.

Initiatives such as the Electronic Government program, implemented since the 2000s, aim to facilitate access to public services with the help of technology. The new digital identity card, which took effect in July 2022, is another step in this direction, as it considers the CPF as a single record, accessible through a QR Code.

Although the new identity reduces the number of documents needed to access public services, there is still a contingent of people who do not have a CPF.

One of the ways to solve this problem is to reproduce in Brazil what is being put into practice in Mozambique, says Frederico Schardong, a professor of informatics at the Federal Institute of Rio Grande do Sul and a doctoral student at LabSEC (Laboratory of Computer Security) at the Federal University. from Santa Catarina.

According to him, the government should request that the 3 million undocumented people visit or be visited by civil registry agents — one of the challenges is locating these people.

As an alternative, Schardong suggests that when a person needs a document for the first time, they should be allowed to self-register already on an electronic identification platform. At first, says Schardong, to validate self-registration, family members or friends with an identification document can attest to the person’s identity.

Formal or informal documents, receipts, contracts and records can also complement identification. From there, the government would be able to map these people, investigate further whether the information is true and start late registration of births.

For lawyer Christian Perrone, head of the law and govtech areas at ITS-Rio (Instituto de Tecnologia e Sociedade), the buses of the Itinerant Justice program would also be important.

The initiative, regulated by the CNJ (National Council of Justice), takes judges and members of the Public Defender’s Office to populations that live far from large centers and in areas at risk.

On the other hand, the two experts say that there are possible risks of fraud and authentication problems in self-registration, such as duplication of identity or registration of false data. This is because there would be no strong evidence that that person claims to be who they are.

The solution would be the visit of the civil registrar who, through his public faith and investigative work, could prove the existence of the person and the veracity of the information.

According to Schardong, the inclusion process actually happens because, even while the electronic identity is still under analysis, it already allows these people to have access to public services.

Effects of the pandemic

Michael Bernstein, founder and technology director of Clicksign, an electronic signature company with information security certification, says that the pandemic has accelerated the digitization process in the country and led several sectors to adopt electronic documents.

According to him, this scenario resulted in cost reduction, agility, security, increased productivity and sustainability, due to the possibility of cloud storage.

“In the sectors of industry and commerce where there was still resistance to the entry of this technology, there was a behavioral rupture and these companies realized how the electronic and/or digital signature is legally valid and can speed up the day to day work.”

During this period, new laws were passed, such as the one specifically dealing with electronic signatures, making Brazil the leader in this process in Latin America.

“At the end of May, the National Congress approved a provisional measure that defines that all notaries must work in a digital environment to provide public records, provide remote service, send and receive documents and titles, issue certificates and provide information , to name a few. All of this is extremely beneficial for businesses, government and individuals,” says Bernstein.

data security

If this digital transformation brings agility, the security of this data is still a concern.

Marcelo Barcelos, internet of things and artificial intelligence consultant, says that the progression of connectivity also makes people more traceable.

Citizens’ information becomes available on a server that, no matter how secure, is subject to some type of attack. “We are following public data hijackings all over the world, including in countries that are a reference for various social issues, such as Finland, Norway and Sweden”, he says.

According to him, the General Data Protection Law is still unknown to a large part of the population of Brazil, and the government of Jair Bolsonaro (PL) is not worried about putting it into practice.

“The digital ID card is amazing, practical, contemporary, but in the wrong or irresponsible hands, it can be a full plate for our data to travel in places we would never want it to be.”

For Perrone, from ITS-Rio, systems built in a decentralized way, based on blockchain technology, can prevent system attacks and data hijackings.

Understand digital identity

Digital Identity

Depending on the context, it can have different meanings and interpretations. It can be anything from login and password for a social media to a registration verification shared between banks. For a given country, the digital ID is a photograph of the physical identity, such as the smartphone app digital transit wallet, in Brazil

electronic document

It is designed to exist fully in the virtual world, without necessarily having a physical version or even a visual representation. An example of electronic identity is an account on an email server and cloud storage. Another example is the identity created by the Brazilian government called Gov.br

Benefits of Digital ID

• More accessibility
• Faster document signing speed (3 minutes)
• Convenience of signing documents from anywhere and at any time
• Elimination of transport and storage costs
• Enables the social and digital inclusion of the population
• Provides direct access to e-government services such as the national driver’s license and voter registration
• With e-ID, the person can only share specific data when needed

Digital ID challenges

• Need to create a legal regulatory framework
• Implementation of effective security mechanisms for different user profiles
• Developing simple and effective interfaces and interactions that are meaningful to users
• Risk of digital/electronic identity hijacking, which can happen, for example, in self-registration on behalf of another person