Brazil is living an age of epic corruption and political cynicism, but what makes the headlines is just the tip of the iceberg. There are 70,000 politicians in this country, and a complex justice system designed to make it impossible for citizens to see who the corrupt politicians really are. This happens because all the information about their cases is hidden within hundreds of courts of law, making it impossible for the untrained eye to understand it. So we made all of their acts of corruption visible with the use of a simple plug in. How? By creating a system that organizes all this chaotic information into one simple list, easy to understand and simple to use.

After helping 85 million people expose corporations' bad services every year, Reclame Aqui, the #1 consumer-protection brand in Brazil, decided to expand its business to citizen-rights, exposing the nation's new public enemy: corrupt politicians. The Colour of Corruption is a simple plug-in that makes every corrupt politician visible by highlighting their names in purple while surfing on the web. All of their official records of accusations, investigations and convictions, hidden in hundreds of courts, are now available inside anyone's browser. To see what they’ve to hide, simply mouse over any marked name and all their current data on corruption spread across different judicial authorities becomes easily available on a list. It works on every website, search engine, news portal and social network. Including the official profiles of corrupt politicians. First we had to identify which courts stored the investigations of which politicians. Yes, in Brazil there is a different type of court for each elective position. Then it was necessary to select which investigations were about corruption. Then, we transformed those incomprehensible court records into language that was easy-to-understand. Finally, we developed database software to transform this data into a simple plugin. Purple is the color used by Reclame Aqui to identified companies with bad services. And now the same color is used to highlights corrupt politicians. The Colour of Corruption got over 100 thousand downloads in the first week, and took over the news, impacting more than 73 million people and generating more than U$8.5 MM in earned media. Then, the civil society embraced the project, and Brazil’s #1 private university created an official course for the project. Now, 20,000 students are being trained to track data from all courts and update our database. To try to stop us, politicians used hackers, who tried to shut down the website.

The Colour of Corruption spread like wild fire and shift the social conversation to Reclame Aqui’s new digital tool. It got over 100 thousand downloads in the first week. And took over the national and international news, impacting more than 73 million people and generating more than U$ 8.5 MM in earned media. The civil society also embraced the project, and 20,000 students from Brazil’s #1 private university are being trained to track official data from all courts and update our database daily, they also earn college credits for doing that. To try and stop us, politicians used hackers, who tried to shut down the website eight times. Other countries around the world such as Hungary, Belgium, Argentina and the US, are already requesting Reclame Aqui to implement the project as well. And, most importantly, The Colour of Corruption made people understand that through information we all can fight corruption.