The Electronic Privacy Information Center ('EPIC') announced, on 29 June 2021, that it had joined and signed a letter from the Global Encryption Coalition ('GEC'), urging Brazil to address proposed updates to the Brazilian Code of Criminal Procedure ('CCP'), which is currently undergoing an attempt at reform. In particular, the GEC noted that the CCP reform is in light of the new challenges posed by technological advances that would threaten encryption and data security in Brazil. In this regard, the GEC expressed their concerns about the risks entailed by these developments for encryption and security of users, which could negatively impact fundamental rights, the digital economy, public security, and national security not only in Brazil, but in several countries.

Moreover, the letter highlights, among other things, that the main issues of concern are the provisions regarding telematic interception and the exploitation of technological vulnerabilities by law enforcement for the production of criminal evidence, known as 'government hacking', fishing expeditions, remote collection, resting data accessed from a distance, forced computer system access, and open source processing, which can be responsible for facilitating access through surveillance technologies and can create uncontrolled abuses of state power, such as spying on journalists and activists. In this light, the letter's text also mentions that these positions could force companies using strong security protections, such as end-to-end encryption, to introduce security flaws into their systems to be used as backdoors for law enforcement.

You can read the press release here and the open letter here.