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Digital Planet: Brazil’s Data Protection Law comes into force

Factual: Science & Nature

A hand holding a padlock in front of html code to illustrate online data protection

10/08/2021 GMT

Brazil’s Data Protection Law comes into force

BBC World Service - Digital Planet, Brazil’s Data Protection Law comes into force

Brazil’s Data Protection Law comes into force with potential fines of $10m

Brazil’s Data Protection Law comes into force. Also a Twitter Disaster Bot in Indonesia and the increasing popularity of Bitclout.

Brazil’s Data Protection Law
Brazil has started to enforce its data protection law with companies facing fines of up to $10m USD if they fail to comply.  We’re speaking to the Director of the recently formed National Data Protection Authority, Miriam Wimmer, about how the legislation will protect the data of individuals and the impact on companies in Brazil.

Twitter Disaster Bot
As the clean-up operation following the floods in Henan province in central China continues Yuan Ren reports on the tech that has or hasn’t worked in preventing and managing these floods.  We also hear about a disaster alerting twitter bot that’s been developed in Indonesia. Jakarta produces 2% of all tweets globally, it is also hit by a huge number of disasters, from flooding to earthquakes. The information people are tweeting about these disasters can now be collected into a real time map, PetaBencana or Disaster Map, with the help of a twitter bot. This bot recognises certain words associated with disasters, such as “flood”, and will respond to the sender to ask if they’d like to add the info onto the map. This real time map can help local residents and emergency services know what is happening on the ground. Director Nashin Mahtani told us more.

Bitclout
Harrison Lewis reports on a brand new form of social media. Bitclout is not a company, but a proof of work blockchain designed for running social media. A platform where you can speculate, buy and sell creator coins associated with the social media user, this could be a friend, influencer or high profile celeb like Elon Musk. To do so, you need to hold a token for the website, this is called Bitclout and can be bought with Bitcoin. In itself Bitclout is a native cryptocurrency. Even if you do make money though, you can’t retrieve it.

The programme is presented by Gareth Mitchell with expert commentary from Angelica Mari.

(Image: A hand holding a padlock in front of html code to illustrate online data protection
Credit:  Rafael Henrique/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)


Studio Manager: Nigel Dix
Producer: Ania Lichtarowicz

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