Arrest of Facebook exec, now freed, stirs debate in Brazil
The arrest of Diego Dzodan, the vice president of Facebook for Latin America, by Brazilian federal police in Sao Paulo has stirred up controversy in the country.
The executive was arrested Tuesday after Facebook, the parent company of WhatsApp, declined to follow the orders of a court in the state of Sergipe to turn over information on application usage by people accused of drug trafficking.
After the arrest, the company filed a habeas corpus petition that was reviewed and granted by a judge in the highest state court in Sergipe early Wednesday, leading to Dzodan’s release, according to local media.
The police, however, acted appropriately in the case, according to Frederico Meinberg Ceroy, the president of the Brazilian Digital Law Institute. Facebook and WhatsApp, which has no official representation in the country, are the only two large technology companies that do not cooperate with law enforcement in Brazil in such cases, he pointed out.
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