LGPD (Brazil) Compliance Overview

The Lei Geral de Proteção de Dados (LGPD) is Brazil’s comprehensive data protection law that establishes rules for the processing of personal data of individuals located in Brazil. It applies to organizations that collect, use, store, or share personal data, regardless of where the organization is established, provided the processing activity relates to individuals in Brazil. LGPD focuses on protecting fundamental rights of freedom, privacy, and the free development of personality through clear governance, transparency, and security requirements.

Why It Matters

LGPD is key to building trust in organizations and with their data subjects, as Brazil gets closer to international data protection norms. Failure to comply will lead to administrative enforcement by the Brazilian data protection authority (ANPD), including fines, public disclosure of violations, and processing limitations. With the development of better regulation and enforcement structure it is imperative for companies to adopt formalized data protection practices for reducing legal, financial, and reputational risk.

Core Focus Areas

LGPD compliance targets include establishing a lawful basis for data processing, ensuring data minimization, purpose limitation, and transparency, and enabling data subject rights such as access, correction, anonymization, portability, and deletion where applicable. Organizations are also expected to implement appropriate technical and organizational security measures, maintain records of processing activities, manage third-party data sharing responsibly, and report security incidents that may pose risk or damage to data subjects.

Next Steps

Most organizations evaluating their LGPD posture will do so by gaining visibility into where personal data resides, improving controls to prevent unauthorized access or disclosure, and consistently enforcing policies and procedures across their systems and data flows.