What should teams do about Children's Data under the Brazil LGPD?
Article 14 requires every processing activity involving a or to serve that person's . A child is a person under 12; an adolescent is a person from 12 through 17 under Brazil's Child and Adolescent Statute. For a child's data, paragraph 1 requires specific and highlighted consent from at least one parent or legal guardian when consent is the basis. ANPD Statement No. 1/2023 interprets Articles 7 and 11 as available alternatives when their conditions are met and the best interest is assessed and prevails.
Choose the legal basis purpose by purpose. If consent supports a 's data, obtain and document , the disclosed purpose, and reasonable verification efforts. If another Article 7 or 11 basis applies, record every condition and why that basis and the processing serve the child or 's . Consent, contract necessity, legal obligation, life protection, health protection, and legitimate interest are different tests.
Document the user's age range, age-assurance method, purpose, legal basis, necessity, likely benefits and harms, safeguards, and how the design respects development and the ability to understand the processing. A generic statement that the service benefits children is not a best-interest assessment.
- Separate children from adolescents when Article 14 applies different wording, while applying the best-interest standard to both groups.
- If relying on , use reasonable efforts and available technology to verify that it came from a parent or legal guardian.
- Collect data without consent only when necessary to contact the parent or guardian or protect the , use it once, do not retain it, and do not disclose it to a third party without the statutory permission.
- Treat a 's emergency contact detail collected once to reach a guardian as an example of the narrow contact branch. Reusing that detail for marketing, account creation, or profiling would require a separate legal analysis and does not fit the one-use, no-storage condition.
LGPD Article 14 is the primary rule for children and adolescent personal-data processing.
ANPD guidance confirms that the child or adolescent best-interest test must guide every legal basis assessment.
Article 2 defines a child as a person under 12 and an adolescent as a person from 12 through 17.