Political corruption is rampant in Brazil. At the end of April, the country was in the middle of the biggest bribery investigation in its history, Operação Lava Jato (Operation Carwash), which had begun in 2014. The investigation had revealed a massive system of kickbacks and corruption involving almost all of the major political parties and dozens of leading companies, including the state oil giant, Petrobras. Eight ministers from President Michel Temer’s cabinet and five former presidents are now being investigated on behalf of the supreme court.
Temer, who replaced Dilma Rousseff last year after her impeachment, for example, has been under scrutiny for taking millions of dollars in illicit payments and is now under pressure to resign after being caught on tape discussing bribes for the second time.
So consumer group, Reclame Aqui (Complain Here), and Grey Brazil developed a Google Chrome plug-in that highlights the names of politicians – members of the cabinet, the upper and lower houses of parliament, state governors, their deputies and past, present and possible future presidents – in purple and details criminal allegations again them in a pop-up box. Reclame Aqui runs one of Brazil’s most popular consumer complaints sites. More than 600,000 people check the site every day.
The campaign, The Color of Corruption, was launched just ahead of Brazil’s biggest general strike in decades, after a few months in beta with non-profit group, Transparência Brasil (Brazil Transparency), and following a major boost when the Pontifical Catholic University of Paraná State in southern Brazil signed on as a partner. Thousands of students are now being trained to work with a team of lawyers and journalists to track official date from all courts and update the tool’s database daily, for which they receive a course credit.
The Color of Corruption works on every website, search engine and social network, and gathers information from Brazil’s court system. About 1,000 politicians are being monitored, and the goal is to extend that to more than 70,000 elected officials and other politicians by 2020.
Grey Brazil is now helping various organisations in seven other countries to investigate launching the plug-in, including one of the leading newspapers in Peru and an anti-corruption NGO in Hungary. The technology will work anywhere in the world, so all that is required by other organisations is to put names and official records into the database.
