He is incorrect.

Just got back from Brazil 2 days ago.

My past few trips I had been content with my free 2G from T-Mobile, but this time I got a bit fed-up with it and Tim has a new prepaid deal. R$10 gets you 500MB and 100 Minutes for a week.

I actually ended up getting 2 Sims, because I accidentally separated the nano out from the micro and it was acting up.

Both were standard sims like you would find at a banca/quiosque, Lojas Americanas, etc. and not some tourist special.

First one I took to a TIM store to activate with passport.

It took a little while for the activation to process, and when attempting to make a call before it was active, I was directed to the set-up prompt, which had an option in English to activate with Passport number + Address in Brazil, so taking a trip to a Tim store might not even be necessary.

On the second one, I just used an online CPF generator and that worked out. This is a gray area, so use at your own risk.

*edit* also picked up an extra sim to have ready to activate whenever I return. Nobody ever asked for any ID on any of the 3 occasions when buying them, so I don't think that should be an issue.