7th Brazilian Internet Forum (VII Fórum da Internet no Brasil) — In-Depth Report: Minutes Digest & 3-Line Summary

The 3-Line Summary

1. The 7th Fórum da Internet no Brasil (FIB 7) met on 14–17 November 2017 at the Hotel Prodigy Santos Dumont in Rio de Janeiro under the theme 'Shaping Your Digital Future'.
2. A new bottom-up format — 21 workshops chosen from 78 community proposals — framed debates on surging cyberattacks, personal data protection, and a public hearing on reforming CGI.br itself.
3. This was the edition where a national IGF shifted from organiser-built to community-built programming, a useful model for national IGFs everywhere.

Welcome — this is the Japan IGF Support Organization. This in-depth report on 7th Brazilian Internet Forum (VII Fórum da Internet no Brasil) draws on official outputs, session records and on-site reporting. In a hurry? The three lines above and the diagrams carry the gist.

Conference at a Glance (from official records)

(See the source list at the end of this article.)

Discussion Digest — from the Session Records

Key exchanges extracted from session records and transcripts.

1. A New Format — 21 Community-Proposed Workshops

Sessions: Event-wide: day zero, plenary and the 21 workshops

"We received 78 proposals, and 21 workshops were selected"
— Maximiliano Martinhão (CGI.br coordinator) [1][2][4]

• Dropping the old track system, the forum adopted UN IGF-style bottom-up programming: an open call from 24 July to 3 September yielded 78 proposals, from which 21 workshops were selected [1][2][4]
• The four days combined a sector-organised 'day zero', a plenary and a public hearing, with topics spanning encryption, the right to be forgotten, AI, blockchain and fixed-broadband data caps [1][2][4]
• Attendance was free, with speakers from government, the technical-academic community, business and NGOs in parallel sessions [1][2][4]

2. Cybersecurity — Attack Reports Up 138% in a Year

Sessions: Expert panel on cybersecurity

"How do we achieve security, stability and resilience on the internet?"
— Cristine Hoepers (General Manager, CERT.br) [3]

"In the security field, there is no way to work in isolation"
— General Jayme Queiroz (Army Cyber Defence Command, CDCiber) [3]

• Incident reports to CERT.br — scans, DoS and more — had jumped 138% in 2016 year-on-year, and Hoepers walked through the national attack landscape and notification statistics [3]
• Unesp's Adriano Cansian urged expanding cybersecurity education to close the academia-industry gap, while CGI.br councillors Thiago Tavares flagged connected-toy threats and Henrique Faulhaber pushed user awareness built on CERT.br materials [3]

3. Public Hearing on Reforming CGI.br — Internet Governance Under Review

Sessions: Public hearing (17 November)

• The final day featured a public hearing on the structure of internet governance in Brazil — the composition and role of CGI.br itself [2][4]
• In 2017 the government had put CGI.br's composition and seat-selection process out to public consultation, drawing domestic and international attention to the fate of the two-decade-old multistakeholder body [2][4]
• The forum served as a live demonstration of the multistakeholder method, giving every sector a platform in the reform debate [2][4]

4. Personal Data Protection — The Year Before the LGPD

Sessions: Workshops on data protection and privacy

• With data-protection bills before Congress, workshops tackled privacy, the right to be forgotten and children's online protection — the comprehensive LGPD would pass in August 2018 [2][4]
• CGI.br academic-sector councillor Marcos Dantas challenged platforms' mass data-collection business model and argued for sectoral regulation [2][4]
• Free expression and responses to online rights abuses also featured, testing the institutional build-out after the Marco Civil [2][4]

5. Past, Present and Future of the Internet — An Opening Retrospective

Sessions: Opening session (14 November)

"This open cooperation is one of the internet's great assets"
— Demi Getschko (CEO of NIC.br, CGI.br board member) [2][5]

"Our generation needs a free internet"
— Liane Tarouco (Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul) [2][5]

• The opening panel looked back and forward across the internet's history, featuring pioneers like Getschko, who helped establish Brazil's first connections [2][5]
• Ronaldo Lemos of ITS Rio cited the Marco Civil among Brazil's landmark achievements, and Rio state official Leonardo Soares welcomed the forum's inclusion agenda [2][5]
• Seven years on from 2011, the forum had grown into a national institution, having rotated through São Paulo, Recife, Belém, Salvador, Porto Alegre and now Rio [2][5]

Three-Minute Short Talk — Your Questions Answered

Q. What was new this time?

A. The way the event itself was built: instead of organiser-set tracks, 78 proposals came from the community and 21 workshops were selected — the same bottom-up method as the UN IGF.

Q. What was the most serious topic?

A. Surging cyberattacks — reports to Brazil's CERT rose 138% in a year, and defence, technical and academic experts insisted no one can defend in isolation. A public hearing questioning the future of CGI.br itself added extra tension.

Q. Why should I care?

A. The community-driven national IGF format has been copied widely, and the data-protection debates here fed directly into Brazil's LGPD, which now binds any company handling Brazilian users' data.

What Is Brazil IGF? (for first-time readers)

Brazil IGF is a National or Regional IGF Initiative (NRI), aligning local internet governance discussion with global IGF principles.

Why It Matters to You

What was discussed here becomes the baseline for national digital policy, platform rules and AI regulation worldwide within a few years. The principles confirmed at the 2017 meeting are the foundation of the "next rules" for the phones, social platforms and AI services you use every day.

Sources & References

1. VII Fórum da Internet no Brasil（公式サイト） — CGI.br（FIB公式サイト） (accessed 2026-07-11)
2. VII Fórum da Internet no Brasil inicia atividades com reflexão sobre passado, presente e futuro da Internet — NIC.br（プレスリリース） (accessed 2026-07-11)
3. Desafios de cibersegurança são analisados por especialistas no VII Fórum da Internet no Brasil — CGI.br（プレスリリース） (accessed 2026-07-11)
4. Com novo formato, VII Fórum da Internet no Brasil tem inscrições abertas — Intervozes (accessed 2026-07-11)
5. Uma visão do Fórum da Internet no Brasil, 2011-2017 — Tapuia（個人ブログ・参加報告） (accessed 2026-07-11)
6. Edições — Fórum da Internet no Brasil — CGI.br（FIB公式サイト） (accessed 2026-07-11)

Quotes are translated or condensed from the records listed above. Bracketed numbers [n] refer to the source list.

Related links

• IGF official (NRI list): https://www.intgovforum.org/en/content/national-and-regional-igf-initiatives
• Japan IGF: https://japanigf.jp/
• Yuki Nakazawa's blog: https://nkzw.jp/category/igf/

Revision History

Rev. 1 — published 26 August 2017, 15:00 (Article published)

Rev. 2 — updated 16 July 2026, 20:09 (Fully revised into the in-depth edition: added the 3-line summary, minutes digest, short talk, source list and diagrams (all quotes verified against the listed sources))

— 中澤祐樹