Brazilian Age-Verification Law: I Posit It Does Not Apply to Open-Source OSes(planalto.gov.br)
planalto.gov.br
Brazilian Age-Verification Law: I Posit It Does Not Apply to Open-Source OSes
https://www.planalto.gov.br/ccivil_03/_ato2023-2026/2025/Lei/L15211.htm
> Art. 1° This law ... applies to every information-technology product or service aimed at children and teenagers ... or of likely access by them ...
Exception made to Hannah Montana Linux or some such specific thing, OSes aren't products or services aimed at kids, so that leaves us with the category of those "of likely access by children and teenagers," which the text covers next:
> ... For the purposes of this law, it shall be considered likely access by children and teenagers:
> I - sufficient likelihood of usage or attractiveness ... [by them];
> II - considerable ease of access or utilization ... [by them]; and
I'd say it's at least debatable that BSDs and Linux distros meet both criteria. Even assuming they do, however, they must still meet the third and last one — notice the snippet above hangs on "and," not "or," so it follows a product must meet all three criteria — for the law to apply:
> III - significant degree of risk to [their] privacy, safety or biopsychosocial development, specially in the case of product or services whose purpose is to allow social interaction or large-scale information sharing between users in digital environment [sic].
Sure, that pretty much describes Facebook and the usual suspects. I'll even given you Windows as a considerable privacy risk and a maybe for proprietary OSes in general. But I posit that does not apply to open-source operating systems, therefore the law doesn't apply to them — or, if nothing else, this is a very defensible position.