Gesilea Teles participated in the meeting representing the director of Anatel, Carlos Manuel Baigorri, who is on vacation.
According to the superintendent, the current activities to block illegal betting sites follow the framework established by the Ministry of Finance. There is a communication procedure established between the agencies, a system formalized through a cooperation agreement, where the Secretariat of Prizes and Betting (SPA) is responsible for forwarding the list of pages so that the providers can carry out the blocking.
“Since October 2024, Anatel has already acted in blocking more than 8,560 illegal betting sites. And how does this blocking work? The Ministry of Finance sends us a list of sites that must be blocked. Anatel, with this list, communicates with the providers that provide internet access. Who are these providers? They are the mobile internet providers, which we know as cell phones, and the fixed internet providers. How many providers are we talking about? There are more than 21 thousand providers,” explained Gesilea Teles.
She clarified that it is not Anatel’s responsibility to block the website; the agency merely notifies the provider of the ministry’s decision to stop the website’s operation.
“With all of this procedure that Anatel adopts, we cannot interfere with the operators’ networks. What we do is merely communicate a decision that is not within our jurisdiction.”
Weaknesses
However, the superintendent warned that some actions may weaken Anatel's performance. Such as the use by users of virtual private networks, known as VPNs, to “mask” their location, bypassing the blocking system.
“The VPN creates an encrypted connection between the user and the VPN server, and then you don't know where that user is. If that user connects to a VPN abroad, for example, the communication providers here don't know that he is in Brazil. And he is physically in Brazil, but he is not virtually there. It is a way of circumventing a blocking order.”
Another complicating factor for Anatel's performance, according to Teles, is the rapid change of names of illegal websites and the inclusion of the agency in a closed list sent by the Ministry of Finance, without the possibility of extending the blocking to a website name that has been modified and that belongs to the same group. Anatel only has this authorization when the ministry sends a new list containing this new information.
“The illegal websites themselves can change their names. Today, what is ABC Bet, tomorrow it changes to ABCD Bet. They change one letter on the website and Anatel works with a closed list that is sent to us by the Ministry of Finance.”
For the rapporteur of the CPI, Senator Soraya Thronicke (Podemos-MS), it is as if Anatel were mopping up ice.
“VPN is not illegal, but they can change just one point, one letter, and continue with the same platform, continuing with another name. This is something that impresses us greatly. I usually say that we are trying to change a tire while the car is still moving and we are very behind. Because they are already light years ahead of us.”
In response to Senator Izalci Lucas (PL-DF), Gesilea Teles reported that Anatel is studying the possibility of partnering with VPN providers or technology companies to develop solutions that make the agency's performance in this notification process more efficient.
Jurisdiction
Anatel's jurisdiction is limited to notifying telecommunications providers. The agency cannot, for example, legally reach agents in the digital ecosystem, such as social networks or online betting platforms themselves.
The superintendent explained that Anatel has no influence over public domain translation service providers, known as DNS, and content distribution network providers, known as CDNs, such as Google and Cloudflare.
In this sense, she advocated changes to the Internet Civil Rights Framework (Law 12,965, of 2014) to grant Anatel powers to monitor, regulate and apply sanctions to companies responsible for connectivity enabling services.
“Precisely to expand Anatel’s powers. We need to be able to reach DNSs, we need to be able to reach CDNs to have a stronger presence and the power to monitor what is happening in the betting world. The way the legal boundaries are, we do not have this power.”
Anatel is only responsible for transmitting the communication of court orders to block websites, which, according to it, have been issued 139 so far, and administrative orders from the Ministry of Finance, totaling 8,560.
“It is important that there be a modernization of the Internet Civil Rights Framework so that both the internet connection provider and those responsible for other connectivity enabling services and internet application providers can be held civilly and administratively liable if they disobey court orders and, most importantly, administrative orders.”
Soraya reported that she has already received the suggestion for the preliminary draft, however, she is studying the possibility of negotiating with the Executive Branch so that the change can be made by means of a provisional measure.
“He [Carlos Manuel Baigorri – president of Anatel] submitted this draft of a preliminary draft, but we also discussed, given the urgency and relevance, which are the requirements of a provisional measure, we are waiting for an appointment with Minister Fernando Haddad so that he can decide whether to make a provisional measure (…), it would be a faster way. Because projects really take a long time.”
Senator Izalci Lucas (PL-DF) mentioned the possible resistance of large platforms, such as Google and Meta, in the face of possible civil liability for non-compliance with an administrative order and questioned how Anatel intends to address this issue, should the Civil Framework be changed by a bill or provisional measure.
“When we think about changing the Legal Framework, and then we create a legal basis for Anatel to be able to act, I think that the platforms that operate in Brazil will have to adapt and accept Brazil's legal framework and will not be able to contest Anatel's jurisdiction. Today, this doubt about jurisdiction exists because it is not clear that we can act on legal platforms. Once this is resolved, they will not be able to contest it,” clarified the Anatel representative.
Senator Damares Alves (Republicans-DF) argued that, even if the expansion of jurisdiction is not done by provisional measure, the CPI can present the project.
Investments
The rapporteur also asked about other challenges for Anatel’s performance, such as restrictions on investments and access to new technologies. The guest responded that the agency’s work could be better executed if it hired more professionals and invested more to optimize this type of analysis for blocking and monitoring websites using artificial intelligence, especially if the agency’s jurisdictions were expanded.
As a contribution, Izalci Lucas suggested calling on legal companies themselves to assist in the development of technological systems that can automatically track and block illegal websites.
Source: Agência Senado
