Brazilian Judicial School Launches Course on AI, Deepfakes and Digital Governance for Judges

The Judicial School of the State of Rio de Janeiro (EMERJ) has announced a new continuing‑education program for judges titled “Challenges of Technology in Justice: Digital Governance, Artificial Intelligence and Deepfakes.” The distance‑learning course will run from August 17 to September 15, 2026, combining asynchronous material on the school’s Moodle platform with several live Zoom sessions.

According to the official program, the 14‑hour course is reserved for 40 judges from the Rio de Janeiro Court of Justice and covers four main themes: the use of AI in public‑sector functions, the concept of “homo digitalis” (citizens whose lives are deeply embedded in digital systems), cybersecurity, and the legal implications of deepfake technology that fabricates or alters video of real people.

Brazil has seen mounting concern that AI‑generated content could undermine trust in elections, courts and public institutions. By training judges directly on how these systems work and where they fail, EMERJ aims to improve how digital evidence is assessed and to inform internal governance rules for the judiciary’s own use of AI tools. The initiative reflects a broader global trend: rather than treating AI as a purely technical topic, judicial schools are beginning to treat it as part of core legal literacy for the digital age.