The Brazilian Emergency Income Aid Bailout and Post-COVID-19 Consumers Surveillance

Abstract

In this brief essay, we seek to present the outline of a future paper that will analyze the risks involved in the mechanism chosen by the Brazilian Federal Government for the granting of an Emergency Income Aid Bailout provided for in federal law no. 13982, that is, the opening of digital accounts for those who did not have bank accounts at the time of enrollment in the social program, thereby reaching the population that, at one time, was far from the State's inspection eyes in economic matters.

It is about the inclusion of about 30 million new consumers in the databases that also feed the recently regulated “Cadastro Positivo de Crédito”, the Brazilian version of the "Credit Reports", with the special detail that the fulfillment of certain legal requirements guarantees a greater categorization of these consumers, with direct impact on the most accurate deduction of the consumption profile of each citizen and, consequently, on the granting of credit in the country.

In the study that follows, it is attempted to demonstrate how the creation of these digital accounts - a maneuver used as a solution in the “state of exception” resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic, for the distribution of emergency income aid bailout - will have implications for future analysis of credit for those who were on the margins of the automated systems regulated by the Credit Reports, reflecting as yet another tool capable of reinforcing chronic surveillance over the Brazilian consumer market.