The Brazilian House of Representatives approved, on 31 August 2021, in the second round, the text of the Constitutional Amendment Proposal PEC No. 17/2019, which amends the Brazilian Federal Constitution to include the protection of personal data among the fundamental rights and guarantees, as well as to establish the exclusive Federal competence to legislate on the protection and processing of personal data.

However, the House of Representatives noted that, during the voting, the Novo Party highlighted the decision to remove from the original text of the PEC No. 17/2019 the sentence: 'the creation of a data protection regulatory body in the form of an intendent entity, part of the federal public administration indirect, and subject to a special autocratic regime'. In particular, Representative Vinicius Poit from the Novo Party questioned the inclusion in the Constitution of this specific question of the creation of an agency, stating: "Nobody here is questioning the autonomy, or the independence of the regulatory authority. However, constitutionalising this issue has never been done for any other agency". Thus, the House of Representatives outlined that the provision in question was removed from the original text.

The text of PEC No. 17/2019 as approved by the House of Representative will now return to the Senate for new approval and voting.

You can read the press release here and the full text of PEC 17/2019 here, both only available in Portuguese.