Pan American Games, in 2007; Rio+20, in 2012; Confederations Cup and World Youth Day in 2013; World Cup in 2014 and, finally, the Olympics in 2016. As the host country for all these mega-events, Brazil, and especially the city of Rio de Janeiro, was converted into the focus of the surveillance technologies market and a testing ground for legal-institutional changes tending towards major surveillance and control of the information flow.

Everything indicates that the legacy of this series of events was the construction of a surveillance system with a price, efficiency and transparency that is quite questionable. Who operates this system today? What is the scope? What sort of technologies are being used? Was there a balance to ensure the privacy and confidentiality of communications as well? What is the cut-off point and the balancing measures? How to assess the effectiveness?

This study is supported by Privacy International and Citizenlab and intends to make tangible changes in the Brazilian state’s capacity to implement different forms of information control, highlighting the areas of uncertainty that give rise to serious violations of human rights.

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