In recent years, alongside India, Brazil has consolidated itself as a global protagonist in the field of Digital Public Infrastructures (DPI). Pix, launched in 2020 by the Brazilian Central Bank (BCB), reached around 170 million users, becoming the main payment system in the country. A similar number of people use GOV.br, the digital government and identification scheme that integrates over 4,600 digital services. Unlike the Indian governance arrangement, which can accord varying roles to the state (e.g., Aadhaar is backed by the government as a provider, while the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) is owned by commercial banks, hence the government is just an enabler), the Brazilian context is often cited in international fora as an example of how governments may provide scalable, free of charge, and inclusive DPI.
Nonetheless, a structural contradiction lies behind that recognition. Although Brazil leads the development and adoption of DPI, these systems are still primarily governed through technocratic instances. Individuals and organized social movements do not have a seat in decisions on the design, development, and maintenance of major DPI. Pix is regulated by the BCB with indirect participation of private financial companies and consumer protection non-profit organizations in the Pix Forum, but those spaces are quite opaque, with very limited visibility to broader society. Similarly, GOV.br is controlled by the Ministry of Management and Innovation in Public Services, partnered with state IT company Serpro, without binding instances of popular participation.
This gap is not a minor issue. On the contrary, as Governance, Openness and Security of Digital Public Infrastructure in India by the internet Research Lab (hereafter, the “GOSDPI paper”) demonstrates through the Indian model (Aadhaar, UPI, FASTag, etc.), the lack of sufficient public governance is not an accident but a structural feature that enables private appropriation and data misuse. As the GOSDPI paper documents, this was exemplified by how the National Payments Corporation of India, the entity in charge of 80 percent of digital payments in India, argues that it does not function as a state institution, hence avoiding transparency and access to information. Brazil has not reached that situation yet, precisely because only systems operated by the state are considered DPI. The risk, however, lies in rigid vertical structures and in the privatization legacy, if there is no structured social control over these systems. There is an urgent need to reflect upon how to build broader democratic governance in DPI already massively adopted.
MTST as a bottom-up laboratory
It is within this context that the Homeless Workers Movement (MTST) gains relevance. Founded on the accumulated experience of the Landless Rural Workers Movement (MST), but focused on urban contexts, the MTST has been fighting for and organizing workers whose labor relations are not covered by traditional unionism. Their main form of struggle is the occupation of land that does not fulfil a social function in urban centers, especially in the peripheries of large metropolises. The MTST is a popular, urban movement fighting for housing, but it is also more than that.
Since 2020, differently from a purely claim-making approach, the MTST started to build its own digital infrastructures. There are several examples, among them the Victory App, which allows the organization of the movement and communication among members, and Hire Those Who Struggle (Contrate Quem Luta), a WhatsApp-based tool that connects workers from the movement with supporters who want to hire services such as cleaning and construction. All initiatives were built through the movement’s own resources, governed through assemblies, and oriented towards a common social goal rather than profit.
The movement has also been articulating a coalition for popular digital sovereignty with other social organizations, such as the MST, the World Women’s March, and the Brazilian Network for Digital Sovereignty, thus having the power to bring solid representation to broader debates. It is worth mentioning that the MTST already works as an external auditor for Brazil’s electronic voting machines and has developed digital participation tools for electoral campaigns with inclusive and accessible interfaces.
The MTST’s Tech Sector demonstrates, in practice, that it is possible to build digital infrastructure through communitarian governance, transparent and guided by social justice values. However, without the economic strength and organizational power of the state, popular movements cannot compete with Big Tech and the governments at the core of capitalism. That is precisely why the relationship between bottom-up experiments and state-led DPI must be rethought.
Brasil Participativo as digital public infrastructure for participation
Beyond Pix and GOV.br, there are other digital public infrastructures taking shape in Brazil. One of them is Brasil Participativo (Participatory Brazil), which allows citizens to contribute to making public policies. Originally launched for the elaboration of the Participatory Multi-Year Plan (PPA) 2024-2027, Brasil Participativo reached about 1.4 million users, proving to be technically viable and socially appealing. However, its first version was for a one-time consultation, without binding power and subject to being discontinued by a future government.
Brasil Participativo (BP) was developed using a digital public good, the free software Decidim, allowing anyone to access the code and propose eventual changes. Yet in practice, no one beyond the laboratory responsible for development has contributed to the system. Moreover, like other mainstream DPI in the Global South, BP runs on cloud infrastructure from major Big Tech companies (the Achilles heel of DPI). Beyond a direct channel with society, Brasil Participativo can also be thought of transversally across other DPIs. That is, using Brasil Participativo as a cross-cutting governance axis, connecting civil society to different sectoral forums. The same citizen, authenticated through the digital ID GOV.br, could contribute proposals to the Pix Forum (the participatory instance of the instant payment system), and participate in consultations regarding digital policies and governance more broadly, such as the National Strategy for Digital Government.
That means making BP a structural and permanent layer of the Brazilian state. Moreover, in late 2025, one of the major leaders of the MTST became the Secretary-General of the Presidency of the Republic, the ministry in charge of the digital participation agenda. This institutional bridge opens unprecedented possibilities for convergence.
The state-society convergence and political risks
The federal government took an important step in April 2026 when it released the results of the public consultation for the elaboration of the Brazilian Digital Transformation Strategy. The government expected to gather diffuse contributions, precisely through BP. The result, however, was surprisingly convergent. Among multiple stakeholders (academia, the private sector, civil society organizations, and ordinary citizens), the points of greatest consensus were the demand for digital sovereignty based on Digital Public Infrastructures and the need to guarantee popular participation in governance processes, thus democratic alternatives to digital sovereignty. In other words, when the government opens listening channels, society responds clearly. The public consultation thus creates a legitimate mandate for the construction of participatory mechanisms. And it is exactly at this point that Brasil Participativo can become a key DPI that enables democratic control and avoids capture by large foreign providers.
However, there is a clear political risk. The elections of 2026 could bring a change in government that decides to discontinue or weaken Brasil Participativo, as has happened with other participatory tools in the past. To ensure its survival beyond electoral cycles, it is essential to structure effective participation from multiple actors that create distributed ownership and shared responsibility. That means involving municipalities that can adopt and adapt the platform for local participatory budgets, implementing companies that provide sustainable technical support, the developer and civic tech community that contributes to coding and auditing, and academia that produces evidence-based improvements and monitors outcomes. Without this multi-layered ecosystem, Brasil Participativo remains dependent on the political will of a single federal administration, which is a fragile foundation for any digital public infrastructure.
Concrete mechanisms can still be pursued. DPIs can be designed or altered to guarantee binding seats on governance councils for representatives of popular movements and union federations. Ideally, though not very probable in the short term, these organizations would have veto power over changes that undermine fundamental rights. The introduction of new features in major and sectoral DPIs could be qualified through Brasil Participativo, making it an obligation for the institutions in charge to hold participatory processes, even on highly technical subjects. Furthermore, social movements could be formally recognized as auditing bodies, receiving public funding to conduct independent inclusion, security, and privacy audits.
Finally, to broaden the "public" aspect of DPI, they could be developed with community modules that are not controlled entirely by the state. Pix and GOV.br could consider adopting open modules that would enable faster adoption and bottom-up development of solutions, hence increasing capillarity and efficiency for those acting in the territories, such as the MTST.
The central question is not whether popular movements like the MTST can participate in DPI governance, but under what conditions that participation becomes possible and sustainable. The MTST has already shown representativeness, organizational capacity, and hands-on experience with digital technology, from internal apps to external audits of electoral systems. What is missing is an institutional architecture that articulates state and society without subordinating one to the other. Brasil Participativo, if anchored in a distributed ecosystem of municipalities, civic tech communities, implementers, and academia, can become that permanent bridge.
Therefore, a genuine digital public infrastructure for social participation would not treat popular movements as mere consultants or beneficiaries. It would recognize them as legitimate co-governors, precisely because they bring territorial roots, democratic practice, and a proven ability to build technology from below. The risk of political discontinuity after 2026 is real, but so is the opportunity to lock in a participatory model that no future government can easily dismantle. That is the concrete horizon for DPI and the MTST: one that promotes public-popular partnerships instead of public-private ones; and does not deny the material dimension of infrastructure in general.
Alexandre is currently a coordinator of digital participation at the General Secretariat of the Presidency of Brazil, PhD candidate in design of DPI at UdK Berlin-Weizenbaum and member of the Homeless Workers Movement Tech Sector.