Senate approves creation of "virtual patrol" to curb online child abuse

The Federal Senate approved this Tuesday (7) a bill that toughens punishments for sexual crimes against children and adolescents committed in the digital environment, including when artificial intelligence is used. The measure was approved symbolically, that is, without a nominal record of votes, and is now subject to approval by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT).

Unlike the so-called digital ECA (Child and Adolescent Statute) - which imposes responsibilities and penalizes the monetization of content related to child abuse -, PL 3,066 of 2025 toughens criminal penalties for those who already commit a crime. The text changes the Penal Code for anyone who produces, distributes, acquires or stores child sexual abuse material, including those generated by AI (deepfakes).

Authored by deputy Osmar Terra (PL-RS), the project was analyzed by the Senate on an urgent basis, with a final report by senator Fabiano Contarato (PT-ES).

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The project creates a "virtual patrol" model, which authorizes investigative bodies to act proactively in public digital environments, such as a police officer who is authorized to pose as a minor to identify crimes against children and adolescents, without the need for prior judicial authorization.

For those who produce, film or sell content involving sexual violence against minors, the sentence increases from 4-8 years to 4-10 years in prison; for those who distribute or disseminate this material, from 3-6 years to 4-10 years; and for those who acquire or store the content, from 1-4 years to 3-6 years. The penalty for enticing minors into lewd acts increases from 1-3 years to 3-5 years.

The text also replaces the expression "child pornography" with "sexual violence against children or adolescents" in the legislation - a change that, according to the rapporteur, avoids associating crimes with "sexual material intended for adults" and reinforces the seriousness of the conduct.

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Several of these crimes become part of the list of heinous crimes, which restricts benefits such as bail, pardon and sentence progression. Sentences can also be increased by one third to two thirds when the crime involves artificial intelligence, deepfake, fake profiles or abuse of a relationship of trust with the victim.

USE OF VPN
One of the most debated points of the project is the new article 226-A of the ECA, which increases the penalty from one third to two thirds when the criminal uses an intermediary server, VPN (Virtual Private Network, in English) or IP masking techniques to make identification difficult. A group of eight entities from civil society and the digital sector expressed their desire to remove this specific device, without opposing the rest of the project.

According to a letter sent by the group, the text legally equates "technically distinct" tools. VPNs are recommended by international information security standards and routinely used in corporate, school and hospital networks. The entities' fear is that Brazilian Criminal Law will start to treat, for the first time, a neutral data protection technology as a factor in aggravating sentences in itself, a precedent that could later be replicated in other contexts and increase scrutiny on privacy tools used by journalists and human rights defenders.

*Under the supervision of João Ker

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Source: CNN