Logic gates and access records: from technical possibilities to judicial reasonings in brazilian courts

“The linkage between technical and public policy issues is of particular importance in the governing of the Internet.”2 The exhaustion of version 4 of IP (IPv4), the implementation of its version 6 (IPv6), and the sharing of IPs as a transitory solution reflect the relationship between the Internet architecture, its technical layer, and that of public policy, regarding access and the operability of the internet. This problem still results into legal consequences in cases where access records are required in criminal investigations and legal proceedings of a varied nature, in order to identify a specific user.
An Internet Protocol (IP) address is a numerical sequence used to identify a device connected to the Internet, and to guide the data packets that arrive and leave that device. In the process of transition of the IP versions, the problem of depletion of the IPv4s blocks has been solved by sharing among several users of the same public IP.This was the technical solution chosen in Brazil, and in several other countries, so that the expansion of the Internet was not interrupted in the transition period of protocols. Thus, it was the responsibility of the connection providers to implement the sharing techniques called Network Address Translation (NAT). With these techniques, additional difficulties have arisen to identify online users who use shared IP. In this regard, courts are being asked to provide so-called “logic gates”, which designate an additional numerical sequence used in conjunction with an IP number to identify the location of devices connected to the internet.
As the term “logic gate” is not expressly written in the text of the Brazilian Civil Rights Framework for the Internet (Bill 12.965 / 2014), the Brazilian Judiciary has been requested to respond if: is there a legal obligation to store data relating to “logic gate? If yes, who is responsible for storing and making these data available to the competent authorities: the connection providers, the application providers, or both? Is the logical gate data necessary to identify users who access the Internet through shared IPs (provided by the connection providers)?
Based on these questions, this study seeks to integrate technical issues, regulatory options and judicial interpretations on the responsibility of record and requests that reach the Judiciary related to the transition period from IPv4 to IPv6 in Brazil.

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