Social Protection, Gender, and Privacy: Bolsa Família and Emergency Aid Program
Aims to understand how and to what extent socio-economic vulnerability and access to social benefits compromise the privacy of women, potentially subjecting them to social and state surveillance.
In 2018, one in five Brazilians (21%) depended financially on the Bolsa Família Program, a social policy involving income transfer to families living in poverty and extreme poverty. To apply for this benefit, individuals must register in the so-called CADÚnico (Unified Registry for Federal Government Social Programs), providing personal information as well as details about their residence, family composition, work situation, income, among other factors. This database, used for all government social assistance programs, contains information for approximately 40% of the Brazilian population.
Due to its size and significance, the Bolsa Família Program has been the subject of extensive academic research and political discussions. However, one aspect that has received little attention is the program’s implications for the privacy of beneficiaries, who are primarily women (92%) and economically vulnerable. This is the focus of this research, which results from a collaborative effort between the research areas of Inequalities and Identities, and Privacy and Surveillance.
The aim is to understand how and to what extent socio-economic vulnerability and access to social benefits compromise the privacy of women, potentially subjecting them to social and state surveillance. In doing so, the researchers hope to contribute to answering the broader question about the distribution of privacy in a society deeply marked by class, race, and gender asymmetries. The research seeks to understand the treatment and transfer of data within the Bolsa Família Program, its potential consent policies, and how this process will be affected by the General Data Protection Law (Law No. 13,709/2018), which came into effect in 2020, as well as the recent decree (No. 10,046, October 9, 2019) creating an “integrated database” of personal data for Brazilian citizens, altering the rules for data sharing between government agencies.
The intention is to contribute to the debate on the right to privacy for vulnerable groups, particularly women in poverty and extreme poverty with limited access to basic rights. By clarifying these connections, the researchers aim to promote privacy discussions and policies that consider specific groups and their needs, as well as the Brazilian context characterized by profound inequalities in class, territory, race, and gender.
Publications:
Partial results, in Portuguese (InternetLab) and English (Privacy International);
Article in the compendium “Digital New Deal: Visions of Justice in a Post-COVID World,” 2020: “Data Rights and Collective Needs: A New Framework for Social Protection in a Digitized World“;
Contribution to the Transformer Series project by the Digital Welfare State and Human Rights Project / Center for Human Rights and Global Justice at NYU, 2021: I don’t see you, but you see me: asymmetric visibility in Brazil’s Bolsa Família Program;
In Revista Cláudia, 2021: Digital privacy: how the disclosure of personal data affects women.
In Revista Novos Estudos, 2021, with the article: “Caught in the social safety net: Privacy, gender, and data justice in the Bolsa Família Program”.
Policy Paper, 2021, on data protection: “Personal Data Protection in Social Protection Policies”.