Technical Note - Mass Surveillance and Data Protection: Implications of the Use of the Córtex System in Brazil

The Córtex Monitoring Platform is powered by a surveillance system that includes, among other data sources, real-time images captured by 35,900 cameras spread across public locations throughout Brazil, including federal highways, streets and avenues, entrances and exits of soccer stadiums, and other strategic points. The feature known as the “electronic dragnet” can monitor, live, the vehicles passing through these camera-equipped locations by “reading” license plates. The system was created to be used as a tool for the intelligence sector of the Ministry of Justice and Public Security (MJSP) in Brasília.

Since 2019, the Ministry of Justice and Public Security has been expanding and deepening the use of the Córtex Platform, developed “to integrate public security forces in combating the most diverse forms of criminal activity,” but which, in practice, has enabled broad monitoring and surveillance of civilians.

In this document, Mass Surveillance and Data Protection: Implications of the Use of the Córtex System in Brazil, researchers from the AI Robotics Ethics Society (AIRES) and the Network for Safe and Trustworthy Artificial Intelligence (RAIES) present arguments spanning technical (regarding the technology), legal (regarding data protection and use in particular), and ethical (regarding the ethical problems we face when using surveillance cameras) dimensions.

We hope our work can be used to inform and broaden the discussion about the use of monitoring systems for public security purposes.

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