Stimulating innovation through data protection regulations: a TWAIL-based de-colonizing critique of the inequity of opportunities for domestic firms arising from replicating EU's GDPR into the Brazilian General Data Protection Law

Abstract: Following the implementation of the European Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), Europe exported its data protection standards to Brazil’s data protection legislation. Besides its manifest aim of providing data privacy rights, GDPR also fosters economic benefits by incentivizing innovation of privacy-enhancing technologies. Therefore, using a TWAIL-based de-colonizing methodology, this essay assesses the effects for innovation in Brazil arising from reproducing the European data regulation. This paper argues that this replication provided LGPD with principles that compel firms to innovate in the Brazilian privacy-enhancing technologies market. However, Western to the detriment of Brazilian firms appropriate the resulting economic benefit of innovation because the former excel at introducing and securing technology monopolies in the Brazilian market. To rebalance opportunities for Brazilian firms, this paper advocates implementing local content policy for privacy-enhancing technologies, which requires firms to purchase in the domestic market a portion of their operations’ inputs.