Throughout Jair Bolsonaro’s tenure in the federal executive, from 2019 to 2022, the news has frequently shown cases of denials of access to information on the grounds that it would be subject to secrecy of up to 100 years. However, in all the cases reported by the press, the denial and restriction consisted of a misapplication of Article 31 of the Access to Information Law (LAI).

This study shows that the misuse of 100-year secrecy as a justification for denying access requests increased fourfold during the Bolsonaro administration compared to previous administrations: out of 513 undue denials recorded in the entire period analyzed by Transparência Brasil, from 2015 to 2022, 80% were issued during the Bolsonaro administration.

Most of the undue denials were justified on the grounds of data protection, but were of clear public interest and unrelated to the privacy, private life, honor and image of individuals. See the main findings of this analysis:

• The Institutional Security Office (GSI) was the body with the most denials on the grounds of secrecy for personal data: 73 requests, equivalent to 18% of the total during the Bolsonaro administration;
• Part of these denials involved documents whose secrecy had already expired, and the GSI also claimed new secrecy on intelligence activities, raising suspicions of maneuvers to keep information inaccessible;
• Another highlight is the number of denials related to Jair Bolsonaro’s health, such as exams, vaccination card against Covid-19. Despite the justification of privacy, TB points out that, given the public function and the context of the pandemic, the information is of obvious public interest.