Pablo CerdeiraProfessor Pablo Cerdeira (Fundação Getúlio Vargas – FGV/Rio de Janeiro) spoke about data usage by government on Jan. 21, 2014. He discussed the limits between the data gathering by the government to develop public policies and the privacy of the citizens. In order to illustrate the discussions, he described two big data projects in Brazil: the “Supremo em Números” (Supreme Court in Numbers) and the Big Data Team – PENSA of the Rio de Janeiro City Hall.

The first project was developed in an academic environment with the purpose to analyze data extracted from more than 1.2 million judicial cases at the Brazilian Supreme Court website. The second case concerns the Big Data Team – PENSA, of the Rio de Janeiro City Hall, and the public policies which are being developed after careful gathering and analysis of large data sets, like Waze reports, buses’ GPSs and Call Detail Records – CDRs from mobile phones, among others.
Finally, Professor Cerdeira discussed how to create an regulatory framework that could, at the same same, allow a responsible data usage by the governments without affecting the privacy of citizens.