Startups selling bossware products are mushrooming globally.
The "Little Tech" ecosystem is under-regulated and largely funded by venture capital.
Workers say they feel a loss of autonomy when they are managed by an algorithm rather than a human.
Technologies that promise to track, manage, and supervise workers, increasingly using artificial intelligence, are getting entrenched in the developing world, according to a new report by Coworker.org, a labor rights nonprofit based in New York.
Audits of more than 150 startups and regional companies based in Kenya, Nigeria, Colombia, Brazil, Mexico, and India showed workplace surveillance is expanding in scale and sophistication, the researchers said. While large corporations are known to develop surveillance technologies, a so-called Little Tech ecosystem of mostly unregulated, venture capital-funded startups and small vendors making these products has grown since Covid-19, the report found. The term “Little Tech” was popularized by the VC firm Andreessen Horowitz, which argued that excessive regulation was stifling innovation.
Algorithmic management and surveillance tools are getting even more intrusive in gig work, and are entering offices and the informal labor sector as well, Wilneida Negrón, director of research and policy at Coworker.org and a co-author of the report, told Rest of World.
“The pressure of the hyper-surveillance creates a lot of stress and creates a lot of uncertainty for workers. It brings a culture of suspiciousness,” she said.
Investments by Silicon Valley-based VC firms led to a boom in tech startups globally after Covid-19, Negrón said. This has carried over to companies building bossware products in the developing world, she said.
The technologies include biometric tracking, AI-powered productivity monitoring, and predictive analytics, the report found. Worker data is continuously collected and analyzed by algorithms with the stated aim to improve hiring, evaluate performance, and optimize processes.
Most managers in wealthier nations say algorithmic management tools improve their decision-making, according to a 2024 survey of over 6,000 employers by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. More than 90% of American managers used such tools, especially to reward or sanction employees.
Many tools are first deployed in Latin America, where labor laws are less strictly enforced, according to Ayden Férdeline, a tech policy researcher in Berlin and a co-author of the report.
“There is a Latin America testing ground for products,” he told Rest of World. “If they are successful, they tend to be deployed in other jurisdictions, oftentimes with additional safeguards, sometimes not.”
Many workers are unaware of how their information is collected and used, Férdeline said.
Some gig workers in Kenya, Guatemala, and Brazil said bossware tools make them feel surveilled, and that they have less control over their work. In Porto Alegre, Brazil, Uber driver Carina Trindade told Rest of World she feels the app monitors her continuously, tracking her speed and braking patterns. The app has permissions to access her mic and camera, she said.
Uber spokesperson Gabriel Gabira said drivers have the option to record trips, and privacy terms are followed to access the footage.
In Nairobi, Godfrey Sanya Wanga, a driver for ride-hailing firm SafeBoda, told Rest of World he felt the app undercharged a customer. “I really wanted to ask [the customer] to pay me more, but I remembered that I was being monitored and this would bring me trouble if the client reported me,” he said. SafeBoda did not respond to a request for comment.
Several nations have data protection and privacy laws, including Brazil, Nigeria, and Kenya. But enforcement is inconsistent, the report said.
Here are five current uses of algorithmic management tools. The companies mentioned below did not comment, unless otherwise stated.
1. Timekeeping and attendance systems
What: Platforms that track the attendance of workers, often using geolocation and biometrics to verify presence.
Example: Rankmi, based in Chile, uses biometrics and geolocation to track workers. The platform also gives workers continuous performance feedback and evaluates job applicants using AI.
2. Biometric and identity verification tools
What: Tools that use fingerprint and facial-recognition checks, special digital signatures stored on a secure network, and official records to confirm a worker’s identity before granting access.
Example: Cincel, based in Mexico, provides identity verification tools that do various checks including biometrics, and also cross-check against government databases and blacklists.
3. Performance and productivity monitoring platforms
What: Dashboards that score workers using tracked metrics such as keystrokes, transaction counts, customer interactions, and task completion times.
Example: Ahgora, based in Brazil, offers HR software that allows managers to continually “oversee team attendance in real-time” and that tracks productivity. It uses the data to offer predictions about work, such as potential issues with attendance, which can inform decision-making.
4. Algorithmic management and predictive analytics
What: Platforms thatautomate HR functions, such as hiring shortlists, performance reviews, attrition forecasting, and also unionization-risk scoring.
Example: Visier’s AI-powered analytics platform analyzes HR data and provides insights, including resignation risk. The platform is used by global firms including Deloitte, Accenture, and Tata Consultancy Services.
Andrea Derler, principal of research and customer value at Visier, told Rest of World the platform only “processes data that organizations load into the platform, and we are not responsible for the way the data and insights we help provide is being used.”
5. Gig economy and field workforce tracking
What: Apps that use the workers’ smartphones to dispatch and route deliveries. They use location, trip history, and ratings to allocate jobs and evaluate performance. Workers are managed mostly by platforms rather than humans.
Example: RappiiRappiRappi, a Colombian company, has been providing delivery services across most Latin American countries since 2015.READ MORE, a Colombian delivery app, tracks workers in real time. It has auto accept, where a rider can’t decline orders — and it’s mandatory to qualify for bonuses. Delivery worker Carolina Ramírez told Rest of World she works 14-hour days to earn a bonus of 100,000 pesos ($25) every week, leaving her little time for anything else. “My boss is the app. It’s unfair because to earn a good salary, I have to dedicate myself almost exclusively to this,” she
said.
Brazil is testing a digital wallet program that allows users to monetize their data.
A federal bill, when passed, would turn data into commercial assets for citizens — the first such proposal in the world.
The pilot, a partnership between the public and private sectors, is ahead of similar initiatives in some U.S. states.
Last month, Brazil announced it is rolling out a data ownership pilot that will allow its citizens to manage, own, and profit from their digital footprint — the first such nationwide initiative in the world.
The project is administered by Dataprev, a state-owned company that provides technological solutions for the government’s social programs. Dataprev is partnering with DrumWave, a California-based data valuation and monetization firm.
Today, “people get nothing from the data they share,” Brittany Kaiser, co-founder of the Own Your Data Foundation and board adviser for DrumWave, told Rest of World. “Brazil has decided its citizens should have ownership rights over their data.”
In monetizing users’ data, Brazil is ahead of the U.S., where a 2019 “data dividend” initiative by California Governor Gavin Newsom never took off. The city of Chicago successfully monetizes government data including transportation and education. If implemented, Brazil’s will be the first public-private partnership that allows citizens, rather than companies, to get a share of the global data market, currently valued at $4 billion and expected to grow to over $40 billion by 2034.
The pilot involves a small group of Brazilians who will use data wallets for payroll loans. When users apply for a new loan, the data in the contract will be collected in the data wallets, which companies will be able to bid on. Users will have the option to opt out. It works much like third-party cookies, but instead of simply accepting or declining, people can choose to make money.
Brazil has decided its citizens should have ownership rights over their data.
The “dWallet” allows users to deposit the data generated by their daily activities into a “data savings account.” After a user accepts a company’s offer on their data, payment is cashed in the data wallet, and can be immediately moved to a bank account.
The project will be “a correction in the historical imbalance of the digital economy,” said Kaiser. Through data monetization, the personal data that companies aggregate, classify, and filter to inform many aspects of their operations will become an asset for those providing the data.
“This initiative can lay the foundation for a data ownership model that promotes financial inclusion and redefines the digital economy from a fairer perspective,” Rodrigo Assumpção, president of Dataprev, said in a statement in April.
But data protection specialists in Brazil, home to the most expansive data privacy framework in Latin America, are concerned that this commoditization may raise the price of data, making it inaccessible for smaller companies and even state offices with low budgets. The project could also widen the digital divide in a country that lacks robust digital infrastructure in rural areas.
3 in 10 Brazilians are functionally illiterate
“We will be asking half of the country that doesn’t know how to read to decide if their data can be bought for a certain fee,” Pedro Bastos, a researcher at Data Privacy Brazil, told Rest of World. “People in situations of vulnerability will say yes, and this might be used against them.”
Worldwide, data monetization has so far been led by the private sector. Companies such as Datarade, Amazon, IBM, and Microsoft have created data marketplaces where clients can purchase data sets for their large language models and other artificial intelligence products. In the Middle East, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have created their own government-backed infrastructure to commercialize data. Separately, China allows companies to treat data as assets while the United Nations has said countries can add the economic value of data to their GDP calculations.
Brazil’s project stands out because it brings the private sector and the government together, “so it has a better chance of catching on,” said Kaiser.
In 2023, Brazil’s Congress drafted a bill that classifies data as personal property. The country’s current data protection law classifies data as a personal, inalienable right. The new legislation gives people full rights over their personal data — especially data created “through use and access of online platforms, apps, marketplaces, sites and devices of any kind connected to the web.”
The bill seeks to ensure companies offer their clients benefits and financial rewards, including payment as “compensation for the collecting, processing or sharing of data.” It has garnered bipartisan support, and is currently being evaluated in Congress.
We will be asking half of the country that doesn’t know how to read to decide if their data can be bought…
The project “represents a significant conceptual transition,” a spokesperson for DrumWave told Rest of World. It positions Brazil “as a global reference in data ownership initiatives.” The spokesperson did not respond to questions about how it could potentially harm new and small businesses, as well as vulnerable socioeconomic groups.
If approved, the bill will allow companies to collect data more quickly and precisely, while giving users more clarity over how their data will be used, according to Antonielle Freitas, data protection officer at Viseu Advogados, a law firm that specializes in digital and consumer laws. As data collection becomes centralized through regulated data brokers, the government can benefit by paying the public to gather anonymized, large-scale data, Freitas told Rest of World.
These databases are the basis for more personalized public services, especially in sectors such as health care, urban transportation, public security, and education, she said.
But similar projects elsewhere are facing pushback: In the U.S., federal data privacy bills such as the American Data Privacy and Protection Act (2022) and the American Privacy Rights Act of 2024 have stalled. According to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital rights nonprofit, the bills undermined laws like the California Consumer Privacy Act (2020) that give users better protections for privacy violations.
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“At a state level [in the U.S], there is pressure to not give up their own autonomy to federal institutions,” Victor Quintiere, a law professor at the University Center of Brasília, told Rest of World.
In Brazil, some like Maximilian Rodrigues are eager to try out the data monetization project. For Rodrigues, a computer science professor in Mato Grosso, in central Brazil, it will be an opportunity to regulate access to his data. “If you don’t accept bids, companies won’t be able to use your data,” he told Rest of World.
But not all users are as savvy. Inaf, Brazil’s institute for research on illiteracy, said last year that 95% of functionally illiterate Brazilians — three out of 10 Brazilians — had low digital proficiency. Large swaths of the country, including cities, have slow internet connectivity, which means they generate less data online.
Data monetization could also pressure vulnerable people into forgoing their privacy for a quick payout, much like World (previously Worldcoin) has done in dozens of countries, according to Bastos. Co-founded by OpenAI’s Sam Altman, World scanned over 400,000 people’s irises in Brazil before the government suspended its operations in January for gathering data without sufficient opt-out mechanisms.
“Once you treat data as an economic asset, you are subverting the logic behind the protection of personal data,” said Bastos. The data ecosystem “will no longer be defined by who can create more trust and integrity in their relationships, but instead, it will be defined by who’s the
richest.”
Brazilian “kidfluencers,” driven by viral content and visions of wealth, promote online schemes to peers.
Prosecutors are investigating TikTok for monetizing young creators who do not have the right to work.
Fueled by family needs and dreams of fame, young influencers navigate the Instagram marketplace with parental support.
The hum of midday traffic in Santa Rita do Sapucaí, Brazil, was a familiar soundtrack to Guilherme’s hustle. Fourteen, slight, and armed with a plastic box of colorful candies — Halls and Fini — he wove between cars stopped at a light near the city center. But it wasn’t so much the few reais from each sale that fueled his energy as the lens of a nearby iPhone capturing his every move.
The true reward for the day’s labor rested with his online audience. Guilherme’s accounts on Instagram, Kwai, and TikTok drew more than 2 million combined followers this February. His videos, carefully crafted by him and posted by his management team, held the potential for a staggering 6,000 Brazilian reais, or about $1,000 a month — a sum that dwarfs the average adult income in Brazil. This wasn’t merely about selling sweets; it was about building a brand, a future.
“I want to be a big influencer, to be known globally,” Guilherme told Rest of World.
Guilherme’s manager, Yuri Araújo, has even bigger dreams for the teenager. “This boy can be the new MrBeast from Brazil,” he told Rest of World. MrBeast, with about 592 million followers, is the world’s largest social media influencer.
I want my son to thrive, the same way I went to work at 13, selling fruits and vegetables in a Kombi so I wouldn’t starve.
Child social media influencers like Guilherme are growing globally, and 83% of Brazilians aged nine to 17 have social media and WhatsApp accounts. Many check them daily. There is also a growing number of “kidfluencers” in Brazil who promote online get-rich-quick schemes to other children. Some are paid by TikTok and the short-video app Kwai. Others receive free products and services, or do affiliate marketing and advertise to their followers. Rest of World found scores of teenagers on Instagram in Brazil advertising courses on how to become rich as an influencer. The courses were sold on the digital marketing platforms Cakto and Kirvano for commissions. Rest of World is not revealing the identity of any minors, and pseudonyms are used in this story to protect their privacy.
Such work under the age of 16 is considered unlawful child labor in Brazil, unless the creator receives authorization from a judge to perform “artistic labor” — an exemption that is reserved for child actors and similar artists, and could include influencers. “[The law] aims to protect children and teens, and ensure that they can enjoy each phase of their life at the right time,” Luísa Carvalho Rodrigues, coordinator of child and teen rights at the Public Labor Prosecutor’s Office, told Rest of World. “These kids’ [brains] are still developing.”
Earlier this year, Rest of World spoke to some teenage content creators, including Guilherme, who do not have judicial authorization to work. Guilherme’s age is listed as 14 on all platforms, Micheli Freitas, Guilherme’s other manager at talent management company Salvador Influencer, told Rest of World. TikTok and Kwai did not check whether Guilherme was authorized to work before monetizing his account, and only asked for authorization from his mother, Freitas said.
“Since his career is starting, there’s no excessive revenue, so no need for judicial monitoring,” said Freitas. Salvador Influencer has so far not received financial compensation from Guilherme, and they are helping him as a form of social work, his managers said.
After Rest of World asked TikTok, the ByteDance-owned platform, about Guilherme’s account in April, it suspended him from its Creator Rewards Program, which pays creators over the age of 18 for views on longer videos. “We are implementing additional measures to prevent similar cases from occurring,” a TikTok spokesperson said. TikTok has a “robust” safety team and uses technology and humans to remove any content or interaction that may be harmful to minors, they said.
A spokesperson for Kwai, owned by Chinese social media giant Kuaishou Technology, told Rest of World in April that it had “immediately” closed Guilherme’s account after becoming “aware of the situation.” Kwai “does not work with child influencers in any way,” they said, and requires parental authorization from users aged 13 to 17. Guilherme was not part of its “official” creator program, they said.
A digital influencer rose to fame on the internet by selling sweets on the streets of Santa Rita do Sapucaí, Minas Gerais, Brazil.
A spokesperson representing Meta, Instagram’s parent company, declined to comment on underage creators using its platform for sales.
Child labor on social media in Brazil has come under scrutiny since 2022, when the judicial oversight body, the Justice Council, asked judges to look out for artistic underage labor. In October last year, the Labor Court fined TikTok 100,000 reais ($17,468) for moral damages from allowing children to monetize accounts without judicial authorization. The court has also set a fine of 10,000 reais (about $1,700) for each fresh infraction.
“[Children’s] protection is the duty not only of the family and the State, but of society as a whole,” Judge Marina Stefanoni wrote in the judgment.
A source in the Labor Prosecutor’s Office told Rest of World they continue to scrutinize TikTok for enabling kidfluencers to monetize accounts without a judicial permit.
The Labor Court judgment “does not address the exploitation of child labor by TikTok, and the company was not convicted for it,” TikTok said. The company has appealed the ruling.
After Rest of World asked Cakto and Kirvano about specific underage accounts on their platforms, Cakto banned one creator and said the minor was using an account originally registered by an adult. “We investigated internally and identified that all [accounts flagged by Rest of World] are properly registered by people above 18,” a spokesperson for Kirvano said.
When you’re too tired to work, don’t have a cent to pay bills, and are too poor to give up.
Guilherme had been street hawking for one year when Toguro, one of Brazil’s top fitness content creators, gifted him an iPhone as content for one of his videos. Inspired, Guilherme decided to become an influencer posting fitness content.
He was “a great talent,” Araújo recalled. In just a month, Guilherme gained 8,000 followers on Instagram. Araújo discovered him online, travelled to his house in Santa Rita do Sapucaí and signed him on after feeling moved by Guilherme’s personal history as a street seller — Araújo, too, had worked in the streets as a child. He said he also considered Guilherme to be hardworking, unlike many people who view social media as a hobby. “There are influencers that film a video, [but then] sometimes don’t want to record a new one the next day, so that undermines the company’s performance,” Araújo told Rest of World.
His agency guided Guilherme to focus on street-hawking videos after analyzing Instagram and TikTok audience data, Araújo said.
“The videos about entrepreneurship [street vending] we tested, he ended up getting much bigger results,” Araújo said. “If we change it and do something else, we would lose followers.”
In the beginning, Guilherme struggled to handle criticism on social media, so his team got him a psychologist, Freitas said. “We take really professional care of him,” she said.
A year on, Guilherme usually records himself on his iPhone and edits the videos himself. His managers post content daily across his accounts. He portrays a charming, hardworking boy who perseveres in the face of hardship. In one TikTok video, which has 733,000 views, he shares how hard his job is.
A digital influencer edits his videos to share on social media.
“Sometimes, I feel sick because it’s too hot. So, I’m preferring cold weather lately,” he says.
In another video, Guilherme sits on a bus looking sleepy and tired, holding a box of candies. The caption reads: “When you’re too tired to work, don’t have a cent to pay bills, and are too poor to give up.”
In the eyes of Brazilian law, street vending isn’t just a tough gig for children, but also a dangerous one. The practice is deemed as harmful as toiling in mines or harvesting fields. A 2008 decree explicitly forbids anyone under 18 from this work. Still, online algorithms relentlessly amplify Guilherme’s content to viewers.
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One day in February, Guilherme went to school, and in the afternoon headed to the modest three-bedroom house he shares with his grandmother, mother, 5-year-old brother, an older cousin, and about 15 dogs and cats. His grandmother’s manicure salon occupied the living room, the nail polish displays interspersed with statues of Catholic saints.
Guilherme typically rests for half an hour, then goes to the street corner to sell and film, according to his grandmother, who is his primary caretaker.
She worries about his safety and initially tried to dissuade him from street vending, she told Rest of World. But he didn’t listen. His grades were decent, so she let him continue. “I don’t let him stay out too late on the streets alone to sell because I’m afraid,” she said. “I want him to study to become someone in life. But now, he’s into sales.”
Social media has helped Guilherme’s family pay their rent, medical bills, and buy food, Guilherme’s managers told Rest of World. He has transformed “from a boy who collected recyclables to help his family to a boy who now has almost 3 million followers,” they said.
TikTok was Guilherme’s biggest client, according to his managers. His earnings on the platform, which pays for views, ranged from 1,000 to 6,000 reais ($175–$1,048) per month. “Sometimes, the algorithm delivers [my videos] a lot in a month, and not in another,” Guilherme said.
From the moment you step into school and learn the same teachings as everyone else, you become kind of like a robot
Besides TikTok, in Brazil, Instagram especially has become a marketplace for informal labor for adults and kids alike, Wagner Alves-Silva, an anthropologist at DeepLab, a research project at University College Dublin, told Rest of World. A report by DeepLab estimates that nearly 13% of Brazilians — about 27 million people — use Instagram for commercial purposes. The nation had the most social media influencers in the world in 2024, according to industry estimates. It is also one of the biggest markets in the world for social media users.
“There was a post-pandemic migration from informal labor to digital labor,” Alves-Silva said. “Even though [Instagram] is not a network designed for labor, it’s what it has become in Brazil.”
A screenshot of a typical child influencer’s account in Brazil that includes marketing and calls to action. Identifying information has been removed to protect privacy.Rest of World
Rest of World analyzed dozens of Instagram accounts linked to minors and interviewed young influencers to understand their playbook. It’s a world of viral videos, replicated content, and ambitious goals — they aim for early retirement for their parents and billionaire status for themselves. These kids aren’t playing around; their bios are filled with professional-looking headshots and calls to action, urging followers to “learn from me now!” and invest in digital marketing courses.
The allure of the influencer lifestyle is strong, especially for young eyes. Renata Tomaz, a professor at Getulio Vargas Foundation, explained that children naturally mirror the adults they admire, and right now, that’s the world of online stardom. Alves-Silva highlighted how adult influencers are marketing social media as a shortcut to success for young entrepreneurs. And often, parents are the ones opening that shortcut.
Vanessa is a 13-year-old selling digital-marketing courses on Instagram with the full support of her mother, a business consultant in the Greater São Paulo metropolitan area who has more than 13,000 followers on the same platform. Vanessa is considered a “nano-influencer” with followers in the mere hundreds. In January, she earned about 300 reais (about $50) in commission from selling a course through Cakto, she told Rest of World. She bought a new pair of sneakers with the money.
On weekdays, Vanessa goes to school, takes taekwondo classes, and then spends about two hours writing video scripts. On weekends, she spends 90% of her free time recording and editing content, she said.
“From the moment you step into school and learn the same teachings as everyone else, you become kind of like a robot,” she said. Vanessa considers online marketing a creative tool and more desirable path where she can eventually be her own boss.
In an Instagram Reel designed to sell online courses, Vanessa performs bicep curls in the gym. She is smiling, and in an energetic tone explains to her viewers how to use visual hooks like her gym exercises to help videos go viral on social media.
Explainers on viral content are a moneymaker on Instagram, 14-year-old Fabrício has discovered. After one viral post, where he showed 6 million viewers how to edit a video to make it appear as though he was jumping over a gate, the teen gained more than 130,000 followers in six months. He now posts similar explainers on making viral videos, offers editing services, and earns a commission from advertising microphones, ring lights, and other filming gadgets.
Fabrício’s father is a 38-year-old sales manager in the city of Curitiba. When he was a teenager, he sold groceries, he told Rest of World. “I want my son to thrive, the same way I went to work at 13, selling fruits and vegetables in a Kombi [Volkswagen van] so I wouldn’t starve,” he said.
The two of them attended a digital marketing course online before setting up an account in Fabrício’s name, the father said. They decided Fabrício would be a creator of content and not a passive user of social media.
These days, Fabrício spends three hours a day making content after school.
His father said that when kids don’t work, it makes them unproductive. “That’s [the attitude] we cultivate today, and they end up on TikTok — dancing, playing, and watching porn,” he said.
[Children’s] protection is the duty not only of the family and the State, but of society as a whole.
Guilherme’s digital world is a constant stream of feedback, a chorus of voices echoing his own journey. His livestreams and posts are met with a wave of comments. His managers recalled a few: “Wow, man, I was inspired by you — you changed my life.” “You gave me the courage to go out on the street.” “I started selling to be able to help at home.”
“He’s not only changing his life through social media, but he’s also inspiring many people to start entrepreneurship and change their lives,” his managers said.
For Guilherme, too, influencing isn’t a fleeting trend — it’s the blueprint for his future. With every view, every sale, he’s building toward a tangible goal: a new house, a haven for his family, a testament to his digital dreams.
The rhythm of the city streets is a constant interruption. A friend wanders into the flow of traffic, and Guilherme’s voice cuts through the noise, a cheerful shout: “Hey, Jão, get out of the way!”
A moment of quiet reflection follows, a pause in the relentless energy. “Do you think MrBeast will read the story?” he asks, a flicker of ambition in his
eyes.
Brazil introduced AI tools to review welfare benefits in 2018.
The government aims to have the algorithm review 55% of social security petitions by the end of 2025.
The tool has cut bureaucracy in some cases, but led to automatic denials for many.
When Josélia de Brito, a former sugarcane worker from a remote town in northeast Brazil, filed for her retirement benefits through the mandated government app, she expected her claim would be processed quickly. Instead, her request was instantly turned down because the system identified her as a man.
It was especially frustrating for de Brito, who had been requesting sick pay for years via the National Social Security Institute’s artificial intelligence-powered app, Meu INSS. De Brito had worked in the fields since she was a teenager, and suffered from a herniated disc, scoliosis, and fibromyalgia — chronic illnesses that made her eligible for social benefits. But even minor errors in her claims filed through the app had led to numerous rejections, with few options for recourse.
“I have all the documents proving my health condition, proving everything, and [the benefit] still gets denied. It’s a humiliation,” de Brito, 55, who is illiterate and had to ask her daughter to file the claims, told Rest of World. It’s very hard on rural workers, in particular, who “have worked for so much time,” she said.
Brazil’s social security institute, known as INSS, added AI to its app in 2018 in an effort to cut red tape and speed up claims. The office, known for its long lines and wait times, had around 2 million pending requests for everything from doctor’s appointments to sick pay to pensions to retirement benefits at the time. While the AI-powered tool has since helped process thousands of basic claims, it has also rejected requests from hundreds of people like de Brito — who live in remote areas and have little digital literacy — for minor errors.
The government is right to digitize its systems to improve efficiency, but that has come at a cost, Edjane Rodrigues, secretary for social policies at the National Confederation of Workers in Agriculture, told Rest of World.
“If the government adopts this kind of service to speed up benefits for the people, this is good. We are not against it,” she said. But, particularly among farm workers, claims can be complex because of the nature of their work, she said, referring to cases that require additional paperwork, such as when a piece of land is owned by one individual but worked by a group of families. “There are many peculiarities in agriculture, and rural workers are being especially harmed” by the app, according to Rodrigues.
“Each automated decision is based on specified legal criteria, ensuring that the standards set by the social security legislation are respected,” a spokesperson for INSS told Rest of World. “Automation does not work in an arbitrary manner. Instead, it follows clear rules and regulations, mirroring the expected standards applied in conventional analysis.”
Governments across Latin America have been introducing AI to improve their processes. Last year, Argentina began using ChatGPT to draft court rulings, a move that officials said helped cut legal costs and reduce processing times. Costa Rica has partnered with Microsoft to launch an AI tool to optimize tax data collection and check for fraud in digital tax receipts. El Salvador recently set up an AI lab to develop tools for government services.
But while some of these efforts have delivered promising results, experts have raised concerns about the risk of officials with little tech know-how applying these tools with no transparency or workarounds. El Salvador, for example, ranked poorly in governance and ethics, infrastructure, and human capital in Oxford Insights’ 2024 Government AI Readiness Index. Elsewhere, AI-powered systems from the Netherlands to India have been blamed for surveillance and denial of welfare benefits.
In Brazil, AI is being used to track truancy among schoolchildren, provide biometrics for citizen services, and power a chatbot that explains government files. The Meu INSS app was created by Dataprev, a state-owned company that provides technological solutions, in particular its social programs. It uses computer vision — a field of AI that enables computers to understand images — and natural language processing to scan data in documents uploaded by policyholders.
In January, Dataprev announced it would invest roughly $10.5 million to enhance the app’s data analysis and fraud detection capabilities. A month later, it introduced a new AI feature to further personalize its offerings for users. The INSS aims to have 55% of all the filings it receives through its AI-powered app by the end of 2025. But some users are worried that greater reliance on this technology will condemn them to an even more labyrinthine process.
Users who are unhappy with the decisions can appeal through an internal board of legal resources — which must also be done via Meu INSS. They wait, on average, 278 days to get a response, according to the INSS.
The system has improved: There were around 34,300 denied benefits for rural workers in January, down from around 53,400 a year prior. But it is still not capable of analyzing the more complex filings of agricultural workers and those whose jobs entail more hazardous conditions and additional paperwork, Rodrigues said. Many such petitions filed by rural workers are denied — these cases should be reviewed by a human instead, she said.
“A number of them are not registered in these [government] databases, or do not have enough [data] there,” Jane Berwanger, director at the Brazilian Institute for Social Security Law, a civil rights institution, told Rest of World. If these claims are not reviewed manually, they “will turn into legal battles just because they were not correctly or sufficiently analyzed.”
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The app allows users to fix information that might have been incorrect in their earlier petitions, the INSS spokesperson told Rest of World. Some policyholders have been misusing the program, filing multiple requests in the hopes of obtaining different results, the spokesperson said.
Meu INSS, which has almost 84 million hits every month, has been praised by the International Social Security Association as a “success story in the digital transformation policy” in Brazil. But the app remains out of reach for some of the most vulnerable workers in the country, and may be leaving them further behind, analysts warned.
Illiteracy in Brazil’s rural areas was nearly 15% in 2022, three times higher than in urban zones. “People out here cannot [even] work with Gmail, Facebook, Instagram,” Francisco Santana, president of the Union for Rural Workers at Barra do Corda, in the state of Maranhão, told Rest of World. “Processes are [getting] more and more automated, and society wasn’t made ready for it, especially further away, in the outskirts, for people that live in rural areas.”
For de Brito, the launch of the app was at first a relief, since the nearest INSS office was a four-hour bus ride away. But even on the handful of occasions the platform did approve her requests for sick pay, which amounted to about $260 a month, de Brito had to wait as long as four months for the institute to set up a medical examination to prove her condition. The results of the tests — scheduled in different cities that often required her to travel all day — were usually delayed, leaving de Brito waiting even longer for her benefit payment to come through, she said.
The rejected retirement claim she had filed in February was approved in March — but only because of a connection she had at the National Confederation of Workers in Agriculture, she said. Her case went straight to INSS directors, who identified and corrected the mistake in the app.
“If I had to request [benefits] again, I wouldn’t do it through the app as it is too intricate, and really bad,” de Brito said. “I don’t like it that
much.”
Motorcycle ride-hailing services are available in hundreds of cities across Brazil — but not in São Paulo.
The city of São Paulo sued Uber Moto and 99 after the companies defied a ban on the service.
City councilors from across the political spectrum are trying to regulate the issue.
“Uber Moto: Rio de Janeiro has it,” declared a digital billboard along one of São Paulo’s busiest streets last month. “São Paulo doesn’t.”
The ad, from Uber, is the latest in a monthslong battle that has pitted the ride-hailing giant against the São Paulo city government, which banned motorcycle transport via app in 2023. Uber has found an unlikely ally in its Chinese-owned competitor, 99.
Brazil, home to more than 211 million people, is the largest ride-hailing market in the region, and two-wheelers are key to the sector’s growth. But while users summon motorcycles via apps in hundreds of cities in the country, the service has been suspended in São Paulo since 2023. Earlier this year, Uber and 99 briefly defied the ban, and were promptly sued by the city, underscoring the contentious relationship between ride-hailing apps and local governments in the country, and across Latin America.
In Brazil, “these companies continue to adopt a strategic disobedience to open new markets,” Nina Desgranges, a researcher at the Brazil-based think tank Institute for Technology & Society, told Rest of World. The companies are “relying on popular support to create political pressure,” she said.
Delivery drivers who work for apps at a motorcycle demonstration in São Paulo, Brazil, on March 31, 2025.Agencia Estado/Associated Press
Worldwide, the launch of ride-hailing platforms has often triggered clashes between regulators and the companies, and between the companies and more traditional modes of transport. Meanwhile, users frustrated with inadequate public transport systems have been quick to embrace ride-hailing options, including in Latin America, where Uber, inDrive and Didi Chuxing — which owns Didi and 99 — compete with local rivals such as Cabify.
Regulators across the region have scrambled to address issues including competition, safety, and data privacy. In Brazil, a 2018 federal law for private transportation services decreed that municipalities were responsible for regulating and overseeing such services. But the following year, the country’s Supreme Court ruled that cities could not ban ride-hailing services, and that such prohibitions violated the constitutional principles of free enterprise and fair competition. This seeming paradox has left room for opposing views.
“Ride-hailing companies and the São Paulo city government — or other municipalities that are not allowing the service — are basing their positions on different interpretations,” André Correia, a coordinator of enforcement actions at the Bloomberg Philanthropies Initiative for Global Road Safety in Brazil, a nonprofit, told Rest of World. “One side is relying on a court ruling, and the other is leaning on federal legislation.”
Within that legal gray area, motorcycle ride-hailing has flourished in the country. Over 20 million people have used Uber Moto since it first launched in Brazil in 2020, while 99Moto added 5 billion reais ($871 million) to the country’s GDP in 2023, according to a study by the Fundação Getulio Vargas university. 99Moto now operates in over 3,000 cities across Brazil. Across Spanish-speaking Latin America, Didi Moto expanded to more than 20 new cities just last year, according to the company.
São Paulo has resisted this wave. In January 2023, after Uber and 99 announced their plans to launch in the city, Mayor Ricardo Nunes said that authorizing the service would be “very difficult” due to São Paulo’s complex traffic system, and issued a decree suspending it.
His administration then set up a working group to study the issue, and invited Uber and 99 to some of the dozen or so meetings it convened. In the end, the group recommended not authorizing motorcycle passenger transport via apps because of significant public health and safety risks. Authorities cited data that showed the city saw a 22% increase in accidents and deaths involving motorcycles between 2023 and 2024.
99 opposed the city’s decision. The São Paulo government lacked the authority to ban the service, Bruno Rossini, director of communications at 99, told Rest of World. The company has called for further research, he said.
In January this year, 99Moto defied the ban and Uber Moto swiftly followed, signing on thousands of drivers on their apps. 99 bet that the move would either push the city to legislate the matter, or lead to a legal battle, Rossini said.
“The reality of the case … is that it will ultimately be decided in court,” he said.
After waiting two years “with no progress, no openness or willingness from city hall and no dialogue about how to unlock the issue, we understood we had legal backing and that the decree had no validity,” Rossini said.
The city filed a lawsuit against 99 and Uber days after they launched the motorcycle service. “We will not allow this company to come here and bring a slaughter,” Nunes told CNN Brazil.
The mayor’s office did not respond to a request for comment.
According to Rossini, Uber and 99 have coordinated their efforts through Amobitec, a lobby group representing the mobility and technology sector in the country. Uber and Amobitec declined interview requests from Rest of World.
It’s not just in Brazil that motorcycle ride-hailing services face opposition. Across Latin America, despite their popularity with users, motorcycle taxis often operate in violation of local regulations. Last month, the government in the Mexican state of Puebla forced Uber Moto to suspend operations because the company was offering motorcycle rides without proper authorization. In Colombia, ride-hailing apps are illegal, anddrivers face hefty fines and vehicle seizures. Despite this, Didi Moto continues to operate in Bogotá.
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Sign up for our weekly newsletter and we’ll send you our latest stories, dispatches from our staff, what we’re reading, and more. A world of tech, right in your inbox.
In São Paulo, shortly after the lawsuit was filed, a local court ruling halted motorcycle ride-hailing. In the 14 days that 99Moto operated in São Paulo in January, the company generated 7 million reais ($1.2 million) for motorcyclists and recorded 500,000 rides, according to Rossini. In contrast, it took two years for 99 to amass 1 billion rides elsewhere in the country, he said. Operating motorcycle rides in the city is “extremely strategic,” he added. For Uber, Brazil is its largest market worldwide in terms of drivers and delivery workers, its chief executive recently said.
Despite a growing metro network and an extensive bus rapid transit system, São Paulo is among the most congested cities in the world, with some 111 hours lost in rush hour traffic last year, according to the TomTom traffic index. Two-wheelers are a popular choice to beat the traffic gridlock.
But while two-wheelers are fast and affordable, they are “also more lethal, more polluting, noisier, and contribute to congestion,” Mateus Humberto, a professor in the department of transportation engineering at the University of São Paulo, told Rest of World. Motorcycle accidents accounted for nearly half of São Paulo’s traffic deaths last year, according to official data.
These risks don’t seem to have deterred locals. Seven out of 10 residents of São Paulo approve of motorcycle ride-hailing services in the city, according to a survey conducted by the polling company Locomotiva Institute — and commissioned by 99 — earlier this year.
Meanwhile, the legal fight continues. In late February, another court in São Paulo ruled the city’s decree unconstitutional, saying ride-hailing motorcycle rides are governed by federal legislation, and that cities can regulate these services but not ban them. Despite that, neither 99Moto nor Uber Moto have reinstated their services; the January court decision granting the city’s request to ban the service hasn’t been overruled yet.
Since the start of the year, city councilors from across the political spectrum have introduced four bills to regulate the issue. The proposals range from forgiving fines for those who drove during the 14-day operation to legalizing the service in the city.
Many drivers are also in favor of some form of legislation and protection.
“We support the legalization and regulation [of ride-hailing] but with rules that ensure greater safety and fair pay,” Elias Silva Junior, an Uber courier and a prominent member of a motorcycle delivery workers’ group, told Rest of World. “We don’t want a
free-for-all.”
