“The General Data Protection Law did not come to get in the way. It is a norm that seeks to add an element of trust to research, studies and academic activities involving personal data”. This was the finding of Miriam Wimmer, keynote speaker at the RNP 2022 Forum, this Wednesday (31). 

The director of the National Data Protection Authority (ANPD) provided an in-depth historical context. In a scenario of great relevance of data for economic activities, the global tendency to approve protectionist laws has grown. In Brazil, although there are already legal rules on the subject, such as the Federal Constitution itself, the debate on the creation of a general law began in 2011 and culminated in the consolidation of the General Data Protection Law, the LGPD, approved in 2018.

The legislation came into effect in 2020 and, according to Miriam Wimmer, has a dual function: ensuring that data can be used in various economic and governmental contexts and, at the same time, recognizing this data as a dimension of the human personality to be protected. “It is important to understand the LGPD as an essential aspect of the puzzle of a normative framework for the information society”, she said. 

The norm admits ten hypotheses, called legal bases, to authorize the processing of personal data, such as the carrying out of studies by a research body. Miriam Wimmer said that the ANPD has received many questions about the limits of the legal basis for these institutions. “The legislation is a little confusing. It has a language that is not always easy to interpret”, recognized the specialist.

Another point highlighted by Wimmer was the LGPD's relationship with ethical standards for research with human beings, which must be observed. “The LGPD must be interpreted in a way that is compatible with the pluralism of ideas and freedom of expression of thought, as well as with the promotion of scientific innovation in the country”, she concluded.

At the end of her lecture, the director of ANPD left the guidelines developed by the agency as reading tips on the subject. the material is available for free on the institution's website. The participation of the keynote speaker is available, in full, on RNP's YouTube channel.

LGPD and the development of secure digital platforms

Compliance with the LGPD is also a challenge for more creative sectors. In the panel following Miriam's presentation, Roosevelt Benvindo, Solutions manager at RNP, Nadja Rodrigues, from the National Education Development Fund (FNDE), and Sérgio Fonseca, Architecture and Support manager at RNP, addressed these and other aspects of development of secure platforms for users. They analyzed the example of PNLD Digital, the platform of the National Program for Books and Didactic Material, whose development relies on the work of RNP.

“There were many challenges in different dimensions, such as ensuring copyright protection; the necessary infrastructure for a large demand due to the number of students and schools; and the LGPD security parameters, since there is no way to launch [the platform] without compliance with the regulatory framework of the norm”, said Benvindo.

Watch the panel on building secure digital platforms here. 

5G: technology to connect people and things

Earlier, Eduardo Grizendi, director of Engineering and Operations at RNP, Gustavo Correa, leader of wireless communication platforms at the Center for Research and Development in Telecommunications (CPqD), and Silvia Massruhá, deputy head of Research and Development at Embrapa, spoke about the innovations that 5G, inaugurated in July in Brazil, can bring to teaching and research institutions. Aldebaro Klautau, from UFPA, moderated the conversation, the full text of which is available here. 

Grizendi pointed out the importance of 5G for RNP's strategic objective of promoting a secure, high-performance and high-availability cyberstructure, being ubiquitous for education and research communities. RNP's Director of Engineering and Operations also highlighted the application of the new technology for the so-called Internet of Things (IoT). 

“The application must be not only for people, but for its objects and artifacts. Hence the importance of wireless technology for mobile communications, and even more so of 5G”, he said. 

Correa highlighted that the use of 5G in logistics, intelligent maintenance and energy management within the production plant in the industrial sector is already underway. “For users, that may still be a long way off. But the productive sector is already beginning to adopt these paradigms within its operations”, said the CPqD engineer.

Along the same lines, Silvia Massruhá spoke of the application of technology in agriculture. “Today, we are already working with autonomous vehicles and sprayers in the field, for example. 5G can help us send complex data to the cloud, with software and hardware embedded in agricultural implements”, said the Embrapa representative.

If you want to learn even more about the benefits of 5G for education and research, watch the RNP Forum 2022 podcast, on the RNP channel on YouTube.