Alerts
Bill of Law aims to establish a National Policy for the Digital Protection of Minors
On October 04, 2022, a Bill of Law No. 2,557/2022 (“Bill of Law”) was presented before the House of Representatives of Brazil. This Bill of Law is very relevant to the videogame industry since it creates the Brazilian National Policy for the Digital Protection of Children and Adolescents, establishing rules and principles for the provision of content to Brazilian minors by internet application providers, including those located outside of Brazil.
Please find below a summary of the main topics that the Bill of Law aims to regulate:
- Content moderation by the application provider, contrary to what is established by the Brazilian Framework for the Internet (establishing a mechanism more similar to notice and take-down).
- The use of state regulated parental control mechanisms. Its includes an obligation to make “knowingly or potentially improper content to minors” unavailable, meaning with use of parental control mechanisms and identification of the user prior to he/she having access to the application.
- Depending on what service is provided (i.e., sales inside the application), the legal requirement to identify the user prior to allowing use to the application.
- Administrative penalties for non-compliance includes fines and suspension, or even prohibition of exploitation of the company’s activities in Brazil.
- Finally, one of the most concerning points is the one that aims to amend the current Brazilian regulation for the protection of children and adolescents, in order for it to expressly prohibit the use of loot boxes in video games destined for children and adolescents.
Its important to note, this Bill of Law is still quite recent, and has a long road ahead before and if it reaches enactment. Nonetheless, due to the impact of its terms, we wanted to notify our clients immediately.
Our technology and videogame teams is available to solve any doubts you might have regarding this matter.
