< div class=”field field–name-body field–type-text-with-summary field–label-hidden”> < div class=”field__items”> < div class=”field__item even”> California law enforcement should take note: the state’s Attorney General has issued a new bulletin advising them on how to comply with AB 481—a state law that…
Category: Deeplinks
Prosecutors in Washington State Warn Police: Don’t Use Gen AI to Write Reports
< div class=”field field–name-body field–type-text-with-summary field–label-hidden”> < div class=”field__items”> < div class=”field__item even”> The King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office, which handles all prosecutions in the Seattle area, has instructed police in no uncertain terms: do not use AI to write…
Preemption Playbook: Big Tech’s Blueprint Comes Straight from Big Tobacco
< div class=”field field–name-body field–type-text-with-summary field–label-hidden”> < div class=”field__items”> < div class=”field__item even”> Big Tech is borrowing a page from Big Tobacco’s playbook to wage war on your privacy, according to Jake Snow of the ACLU of Northern California. We…
Courts Agree That No One Should Have a Monopoly Over the Law. Congress Shouldn’t Change That
< div class=”field field–name-body field–type-text-with-summary field–label-hidden”> < div class=”field__items”> < div class=”field__item even”> Some people just don’t know how to take a hint. For more than a decade, giant standards-development organizations (SDOs) have been fighting in courts around the country,…
EFF and IFPTE Local 20 Attain Labor Contract
First-Ever, Three-Year Pact Protects Workers’ Pay, Benefits, Working Conditions, and More < div class=”field field–name-body field–type-text-with-summary field–label-hidden”> < div class=”field__items”> < div class=”field__item even”> SAN FRANCISCO—Employees and management at the Electronic Frontier Foundation have achieved a first-ever labor contract, they…
Civil Rights Commission Pans Face Recognition Technology
< div class=”field field–name-body field–type-text-with-summary field–label-hidden”> < div class=”field__items”> < div class=”field__item even”> In its recent report, Civil Rights Implications of Face Recognition Technology (FRT), the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights identified serious problems with the federal government’s use of…
New EFF Report Provides Guidance to Ensure Human Rights are Protected Amid Government Use of AI in Latin America
< div class=”field field–name-body field–type-text-with-summary field–label-hidden”> < div class=”field__items”> Governments increasingly rely on algorithmic systems to support consequential assessments and determinations about people’s lives, from judging eligibility for social assistance to trying to predict crime and criminals. Latin America…
Should I Use My State’s Digital Driver’s License?
< div class=”field field–name-body field–type-text-with-summary field–label-hidden”> < div class=”field__items”> A digital mobile driver’s license (often called an mDL) is a version of your ID that you keep on your phone instead of in your pocket. In theory, it would work…
Podcast Episode Rerelease: So You Think You’re A Critical Thinker
< div class=”field field–name-body field–type-text-with-summary field–label-hidden”> < div class=”field__items”> This episode was first released in March 2023. With this year’s election just weeks away, concerns about disinformation and conspiracy theories are on the rise. We covered this issue in a…
New IPANDETEC Report Shows Panama’s ISPs Still Lag in Protecting User Data
< div class=”field field–name-body field–type-text-with-summary field–label-hidden”> < div class=”field__items”> < div class=”field__item even”> Telecom and internet service providers in Panama are entrusted with the personal data of millions of users, bearing a responsibility to not only protect users’ privacy but…
Election Security: When to Worry, When to Not
< div class=”field field–name-body field–type-text-with-summary field–label-hidden”> < div class=”field__items”> < div class=”field__item even”> This post was written by EFF intern Nazil Ungan as an update to a 2020 Deeplinks post by Cindy Cohn. Everyone wants an election that is secure…
A Sale of 23andMe’s Data Would Be Bad for Privacy. Here’s What Customers Can Do.
< div class=”field field–name-body field–type-text-with-summary field–label-hidden”> < div class=”field__items”> < div class=”field__item even”> The CEO of 23andMe has recently said she’d consider selling the genetic genealogy testing company–and with it, the sensitive DNA data that it’s collected, and stored, from…
Salt Typhoon Hack Shows There’s No Security Backdoor That’s Only For The “Good Guys”
< div class=”field field–name-body field–type-text-with-summary field–label-hidden”> < div class=”field__items”> < div class=”field__item even”> At EFF we’ve long noted that you cannot build a backdoor that only lets in good guys and not bad guys. Over the weekend, we saw another…
FTC Findings on Commercial Surveillance Can Lead to Better Alternatives
< div class=”field field–name-body field–type-text-with-summary field–label-hidden”> < div class=”field__items”> < div class=”field__item even”> On September 19, the FTC published a staff report following a multi-year investigation of nine social media and video streaming companies. The report found a myriad of…
The X Corp. Shutdown in Brazil: What We Can Learn
< div class=”field field–name-body field–type-text-with-summary field–label-hidden”> < div class=”field__items”> The feud between X Corp. and Brazil’s Supreme Court continues to drag on: After a month-long standoff, X Corp. folded and complied with court orders to suspend several accounts, name a…
Germany Rushes to Expand Biometric Surveillance
< div class=”field field–name-body field–type-text-with-summary field–label-hidden”> < div class=”field__items”> < div class=”field__item even”> Germany is a leader in privacy and data protection, with many Germans being particularly sensitive to the processing of their personal data – owing to the country’s…
EFF to Fifth Circuit: Age Verification Laws Will Hurt More Than They Help
< div class=”field field–name-body field–type-text-with-summary field–label-hidden”> < div class=”field__items”> EFF, along with the ACLU and the ACLU of Mississippi, filed an amicus brief on Thursday asking a federal appellate court to continue to block Mississippi’s HB 1126—a bill that imposes…
Digital Inclusion Week, Highlighting an EFA Members Digital Equity Work:
< div class=”field field–name-body field–type-text-with-summary field–label-hidden”> < div class=”field__items”> < div class=”field__item even”> In honor of Digital Inclusion Week, Oct 7-11th 2024, it’s an honor to uplift one of our Electronic Frontier Alliance (EFA) members who is doing great work…
Join the Movement for Public Broadband in PDX
< div class=”field field–name-body field–type-text-with-summary field–label-hidden”> < div class=”field__items”> < div class=”field__item even”> Did you know the City of Portland, Oregon, already owns and operates a fiber-optic broadband network? It’s called IRNE (Integrated Regional Network Enterprise), and despite having it…
Vote for EFF’s ‘How to Fix the Internet’ Podcast in the Signal Awards!
< div class=”field field–name-body field–type-text-with-summary field–label-hidden”> < div class=”field__items”> < div class=”field__item even”> We’re thrilled to announce that EFF’s “How to Fix the Internet” podcast is a finalist in the Signal Awards 3rd Annual Listener’s Choice competition. Now we need…
Vote for EFF’s ‘How to Fix the Internet’ podcast in the Signal Awards!
< div class=”field field–name-body field–type-text-with-summary field–label-hidden”> < div class=”field__items”> < div class=”field__item even”> We’re thrilled to announce that EFF’s “How to Fix the Internet” podcast is a finalist in the Signal Awards 3rd Annual Listener’s Choice competition. Now we need…
Digital ID Isn’t for Everybody, and That’s Okay | EFFector 36.13
Need help staying up-to-date on the latest in the digital rights movement? You’re in luck! In our latest newsletter, we outline the privacy protections needed for digital IDs, explain our call for the U.S. Supreme Court to strike down an…
How to Stop Advertisers From Tracking Your Teen Across the Internet
< div class=”field field–name-body field–type-text-with-summary field–label-hidden”> < div class=”field__items”> This post was written by EFF fellow Miranda McClellan. Teens between the ages of 13 and 17 are being tracked across the internet using identifiers known as Advertising IDs. When children…
EFF Awards Night: Celebrating Digital Rights Founders Advancing Free Speech and Access to Information Around the World
< div class=”field field–name-body field–type-text-with-summary field–label-hidden”> < div class=”field__items”> < div class=”field__item even”> Digital freedom and investigative reporting about technology have been at risk amid political and economic strife around the world. This year’s annual EFF Awards honored the achievements…
New Email Scam Includes Pictures of Your House. Don’t Fall For It.
< div class=”field field–name-body field–type-text-with-summary field–label-hidden”> < div class=”field__items”> < div class=”field__item even”> You may have arrived at this post because you received an email with an attached PDF from a purported hacker who is demanding payment or else they…
FTC Report Confirms: Commercial Surveillance is Out of Control
< div class=”field field–name-body field–type-text-with-summary field–label-hidden”> < div class=”field__items”> < div class=”field__item even”> A new Federal Trade Commission (FTC) report confirms what EFF has been warning about for years: tech giants are widely harvesting and sharing your personal information to…
The UN General Assembly and the Fight Against the Cybercrime Treaty
< div class=”field field–name-body field–type-text-with-summary field–label-hidden”> < div class=”field__items”> Note on the update: The text has been revised to reflect the updated timeline for the UN General Assembly’s consideration of the convention, which is now expected at the end of…
Digital ID Isn’t for Everybody, and That’s Okay
< div class=”field field–name-body field–type-text-with-summary field–label-hidden”> < div class=”field__items”> < div class=”field__item even”> How many times do you pull out your driver’s license a week? Maybe two to four times to purchase age restricted items, pick up prescriptions, or go…
Calls to Scrap Jordan’s Cybercrime Law Echo Calls to Reject Cybercrime Treaty
< div class=”field field–name-body field–type-text-with-summary field–label-hidden”> < div class=”field__items”> < div class=”field__item even”> In a number of countries around the world, communities—and particularly those that are already vulnerable—are threatened by expansive cybercrime and surveillance legislation. One of those countries is…
Patient Rights and Consumer Groups Join EFF In Opposing Two Extreme Patent Bills
< div class=”field field–name-body field–type-text-with-summary field–label-hidden”> < div class=”field__items”> The U.S. Senate is set to vote this Thursday on two bills that could significantly empower patent trolls. The Patent Eligibility Restoration Act (PERA) would bring back many of the abstract…
EFF to Federal Trial Court: Section 230’s Little-Known Third Immunity for User-Empowerment Tools Covers Unfollow Everything 2.0
< div class=”field field–name-body field–type-text-with-summary field–label-hidden”> < div class=”field__items”> < div class=”field__item even”> EFF along with the ACLU of Northern California and the Center for Democracy & Technology filed an amicus brief in a federal trial court in California in…
EFF to Supreme Court: Strike Down Texas’ Unconstitutional Age Verification Law
New Tech Doesn’t Solve Old Problems With Age-Gating the Internet < div class=”field field–name-body field–type-text-with-summary field–label-hidden”> < div class=”field__items”> < div class=”field__item even”> WASHINGTON, D.C.—The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), the Woodhull Freedom Foundation, and TechFreedom urged the Supreme Court today…
Prison Banned Books Week: Being in Jail Shouldn’t Mean Having Nothing to Read
< div class=”field field–name-body field–type-text-with-summary field–label-hidden”> < div class=”field__items”> < div class=”field__item even”> Across the United States, nearly every state’s prison system offers some form of tablet access to incarcerated people, many of which boast of sizable libraries of eBooks.…
Square Peg, Meet Round Hole: Previously Classified TikTok Briefing Shows Error of Ban
< div class=”field field–name-body field–type-text-with-summary field–label-hidden”> < div class=”field__items”> < div class=”field__item even”> A previously classified transcript reveals Congress knows full well that American TikTok users engage in First Amendment protected speech on the platform and that banning the application…
Strong End-to-End Encryption Comes to Discord Calls
< div class=”field field–name-body field–type-text-with-summary field–label-hidden”> < div class=”field__items”> < div class=”field__item even”> We’re happy to see that Discord will soon start offering a form of end-to-end encryption dubbed “DAVE” for its voice and video chats. This puts some of…
Canada’s Leaders Must Reject Overbroad Age Verification Bill
< div class=”field field–name-body field–type-text-with-summary field–label-hidden”> < div class=”field__items”> < div class=”field__item even”> Canadian lawmakers are considering a bill, S-210, that’s meant to benefit children, but would sacrifice the security, privacy, and free speech of all internet users. First introduced…
Human Rights Claims Against Cisco Can Move Forward (Again)
< div class=”field field–name-body field–type-text-with-summary field–label-hidden”> < div class=”field__items”> < div class=”field__item even”> Google and Amazon – You Should Take Note of Your Own Aiding and Abetting Risk EFF has long pushed companies that provide powerful surveillance tools to governments…
Senate Vote Tomorrow Could Give Helping Hand To Patent Trolls
< div class=”field field–name-body field–type-text-with-summary field–label-hidden”> < div class=”field__items”> < div class=”field__item even”> A patent on crowdfunding. A patent on tracking packages. A patent on photo contests. A patent on watching an ad online. A patent on computer bingo. A…
Unveiling Venezuela’s Repression: A Legacy of State Surveillance and Control
< div class=”field field–name-body field–type-text-with-summary field–label-hidden”> < div class=”field__items”> < div class=”field__item even”> The post was written by Laura Vidal (PhD), independent researcher in learning and digital rights. This is part two of a series. Part one on surveillance and…
The New U.S. House Version of KOSA Doesn’t Fix Its Biggest Problems
< div class=”field field–name-body field–type-text-with-summary field–label-hidden”> < div class=”field__items”> < div class=”field__item even”> An amended version of the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) that is being considered this week in the U.S. House is still a dangerous online censorship bill…
KOSA’s Online Censorship Threatens Abortion Access
< div class=”field field–name-body field–type-text-with-summary field–label-hidden”> < div class=”field__items”> < div class=”field__item even”> For those living in one of the 22 states where abortion is banned or heavily restricted, the internet can be a lifeline. It has essential information on…
Unveiling Venezuela’s Repression: Surveillance and Censorship Following July’s Presidential Election
< div class=”field field–name-body field–type-text-with-summary field–label-hidden”> < div class=”field__items”> < div class=”field__item even”> The post was written by Laura Vidal (PhD), independent researcher in learning and digital rights. This is part one of a series. Part two on the legacy…
The Climate Has a Posse – And So Does Political Satire
< div class=”field field–name-body field–type-text-with-summary field–label-hidden”> < div class=”field__items”> < div class=”field__item even”> Greenwashing is a well-worn strategy to try to convince the public that environmentally damaging activities aren’t so damaging after all. It can be very successful precisely because…
NextNav’s Callous Land-Grab to Privatize 900 MHz
< div class=”field field–name-body field–type-text-with-summary field–label-hidden”> < div class=”field__items”> < div class=”field__item even”> The 900 MHz band, a frequency range serving as a commons for all, is now at risk due to NextNav’s brazen attempt to privatize this shared resource. …
We Called on the Oversight Board to Stop Censoring “From the River to the Sea” — And They Listened
< div class=”field field–name-body field–type-text-with-summary field–label-hidden”> < div class=”field__items”> < div class=”field__item even”> Earlier this year, the Oversight Board announced a review of three cases involving different pieces of content on Facebook that contained the phrase “From the River to…
Stopping the Harms of Automated Decision Making | EFFector 36.12
< div class=”field field–name-body field–type-text-with-summary field–label-hidden”> < div class=”field__items”> < div class=”field__item even”> < div class=”field field–name-body field–type-text-with-summary field–label-hidden”> < div class=”field__items”> < div class=”field__item even”> Curious about the latest digital rights news? Well, you’re in luck! In our latest…
Britain Must Call for Release of British-Egyptian Activist and Coder Alaa Abd El Fattah
< div class=”field field–name-body field–type-text-with-summary field–label-hidden”> < div class=”field__items”> < div class=”field__item even”> As British-Egyptian coder, blogger, and activist Alaa Abd El Fattah enters his fifth year in a maximum security prison outside Cairo, unjustly charged for supporting online free…
School Monitoring Software Sacrifices Student Privacy for Unproven Promises of Safety
< div class=”field field–name-body field–type-text-with-summary field–label-hidden”> < div class=”field__items”> < div class=”field__item even”> Imagine your search terms, key-strokes, private chats and photographs are being monitored every time they are sent. Millions of students across the country don’t have to imagine…
You Really Do Have Some Expectation of Privacy in Public
< div class=”field field–name-body field–type-text-with-summary field–label-hidden”> < div class=”field__items”> < div class=”field__item even”> Being out in the world advocating for privacy often means having to face a chorus of naysayers and nihilists. When we spend time fighting the expansion of…
EFF & 140 Other Organizations Call for an End to AI Use in Immigration Decisions
< div class=”field field–name-body field–type-text-with-summary field–label-hidden”> < div class=”field__items”> < div class=”field__item even”> EFF, Just Futures Law, and 140 other groups have sent a letter to Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) must stop using artificial…
U.S. Federal Employees: Plant Your Flag for Digital Freedoms Today!
< div class=”field field–name-body field–type-text-with-summary field–label-hidden”> < div class=”field__items”> < div class=”field__item even”> Like clockwork, September is here—and so is the Combined Federal Campaign (CFC) pledge period! The CFC is the world’s largest and most successful annual charity campaign for…
EFF Calls For Release of Alexey Soldatov, “Father of the Russian Internet”
< div class=”field field–name-body field–type-text-with-summary field–label-hidden”> < div class=”field__items”> < div class=”field__item even”> EFF was deeply disturbed to learn that Alexey Soldatov, known as the “father of the Russian Internet,” was sentenced in July to two years in prison by…
Victory! California Bill To Impose Mandatory Internet ID Checks Is Dead—It Should Stay That Way
< div class=”field field–name-body field–type-text-with-summary field–label-hidden”> < div class=”field__items”> < div class=”field__item even”> A misguided bill that would have required many people to show ID to get online has died without getting a floor vote in the California legislature, where…
EFF to Tenth Circuit: Protest-Related Arrests Do Not Justify Dragnet Device and Digital Data Searches
< div class=”field field–name-body field–type-text-with-summary field–label-hidden”> < div class=”field__items”> < div class=”field__item even”> The Constitution prohibits dragnet device searches, especially when those searches are designed to uncover political speech, EFF explained in a friend-of-the-court brief filed in the U.S. Court…
Americans Are Uncomfortable with Automated Decision-Making
< div class=”field field–name-body field–type-text-with-summary field–label-hidden”> < div class=”field__items”> Imagine a company you recently applied to work at used an artificial intelligence program to analyze your application to help expedite the review process. Does that creep you out? Well, you’re…
The French Detention: Why We’re Watching the Telegram Situation Closely
< div class=”field field–name-body field–type-text-with-summary field–label-hidden”> < div class=”field__items”> < div class=”field__item even”> EFF is closely monitoring the situation in France in which Telegram’s CEO Pavel Durov was charged with having committed criminal offenses, most of them seemingly related to…
The California Supreme Court Should Help Protect Your Stored Communications
< div class=”field field–name-body field–type-text-with-summary field–label-hidden”> < div class=”field__items”> When you talk to your friends and family on Snapchat or Facebook, you should be assured that those services will not freely disclose your communications to the government or other private parties.…
Americans Are Uncomfortable with Automated Decision-Making
< div class=”field field–name-body field–type-text-with-summary field–label-hidden”> < div class=”field__items”> Imagine a company you recently applied to work at used an artificial intelligence program to analyze your application to help expedite the review process. Does that creep you out? Well, you’re…
Copyright Is Not a Tool to Silence Critics of Religious Education
< div class=”field field–name-body field–type-text-with-summary field–label-hidden”> < div class=”field__items”> < div class=”field__item even”> Copyright law is not a tool to punish or silence critics. This is a principle so fundamental that it is the ur-example of fair use, which typically…
Backyard Privacy in the Age of Drones
< div class=”field field–name-body field–type-text-with-summary field–label-hidden”> < div class=”field__items”> < div class=”field__item even”> This article was originally published by The Legal Aid Society’s Decrypting a Defense Newsletter on August 5, 2024 and is reprinted here with permission. Police departments and…
Geofence Warrants Are ‘Categorically’ Unconstitutional | EFFector 36.11
School is back in session, so prepare for your first lesson from EFF! Today you’ll learn about the latest court ruling on the dangers of geofence warrants, our letter urging Bumble to require opt-in consent to sell user data, and…
Court to California: Try a Privacy Law, Not Online Censorship
< div class=”field field–name-body field–type-text-with-summary field–label-hidden”> < div class=”field__items”> < div class=”field__item even”> In a victory for free speech and privacy, a federal appellate court confirmed last week that parts of the California Age-Appropriate Design Code Act likely violate the…
NO FAKES – A Dream for Lawyers, a Nightmare for Everyone Else
< div class=”field field–name-body field–type-text-with-summary field–label-hidden”> < div class=”field__items”> < div class=”field__item even”> Performers and ordinary humans are increasingly concerned that they may be replaced or defamed by AI-generated imitations. We’re seeing a host of bills designed to address that…
EFF and Partners to EU Commissioner: Prioritize User Rights, Avoid Politicized Enforcement of DSA Rules
< div class=”field field–name-body field–type-text-with-summary field–label-hidden”> < div class=”field__items”> < div class=”field__item even”> EFF, Access Now, and Article 19 have written to EU Commissioner for Internal Market Thierry Breton calling on him to clarify his understanding of “systemic risks” under…
Digital License Plates and the Deal That Never Had a Chance
< div class=”field field–name-body field–type-text-with-summary field–label-hidden”> < div class=”field__items”> < div class=”field__item even”> Location and surveillance technology permeates the driving experience. Setting aside external technology like license plate readers, there is some form of internet-connected service or surveillance capability built into or on…
2 Fast 2 Legal: How EFF Helped a Security Researcher During DEF CON 32
< div class=”field field–name-body field–type-text-with-summary field–label-hidden”> < div class=”field__items”> < div class=”field__item even”> This year, like every year, EFF sent a variety of lawyers, technologists, and activists to the summer security conferences in Las Vegas to help foster support for…
EFF Honored as DEF CON 32 Uber Contributor
< div class=”field field–name-body field–type-text-with-summary field–label-hidden”> < div class=”field__items”> < div class=”field__item even”> At DEF CON 32 this year, the Electronic Frontier Foundation became the first organization to be given the Uber Contributor award. This award recognizes EFF’s work in…
In These Five Social Media Speech Cases, Supreme Court Set Foundational Rules for the Future
< div class=”field field–name-body field–type-text-with-summary field–label-hidden”> < div class=”field__items”> < div class=”field__item even”> The U.S. Supreme Court addressed government’s various roles with respect to speech on social media in five cases reviewed in its recently completed term. The through-line of…
EFF Presses Federal Circuit To Make Patent Case Filings Public
< div class=”field field–name-body field–type-text-with-summary field–label-hidden”> < div class=”field__items”> < div class=”field__item even”> Federal court records belong to everyone. But one federal court in Texas lets patent litigants treat courts like their own private tribunals, effectively shutting out the public.…
The UN General Assembly and the Fight Against the Cybercrime Treaty
< div class=”field field–name-body field–type-text-with-summary field–label-hidden”> < div class=”field__items”> < div class=”field__item even”> The final text of the United Nations Convention Against Cybercrime, adopted last Thursday by the United Nations Ad Hoc Committee, is now headed to the UN General…
Digital Apartheid in Gaza: Big Tech Must Reveal Their Roles in Tech Used in Human Rights Abuses
< div class=”field field–name-body field–type-text-with-summary field–label-hidden”> < div class=”field__items”> < div class=”field__item even”> This is part two of an ongoing series. Part one on unjust content moderation is here. Since the start of the Israeli military response to Hamas’ deadly…
Federal Appeals Court Finds Geofence Warrants Are “Categorically” Unconstitutional
< div class=”field field–name-body field–type-text-with-summary field–label-hidden”> < div class=”field__items”> < div class=”field__item even”> In a major decision on Friday, the federal Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals held that geofence warrants are “categorically prohibited by the Fourth Amendment.” Closely following arguments…
Weak “Guardrails” on Police Face Recognition Use Make Things Worse
< div class=”field field–name-body field–type-text-with-summary field–label-hidden”> < div class=”field__items”> Police use of face recognition technology (FRT) poses a particularly massive risk to our civil liberties, particularly for Black men and women and other marginalized communities. That’s why EFF supports a…
Reintroducing the EFA
< div class=”field field–name-body field–type-text-with-summary field–label-hidden”> < div class=”field__items”> < div class=”field__item even”> We’re thrilled to share that the Electronic Frontier Alliance (EFA) has a fresh new look and a wealth of new resources for community organizers. EFF can’t be…
EFF and 12 Organizations Tell Bumble: Don’t Sell User Data Without Opt-In Consent
< div class=”field field–name-body field–type-text-with-summary field–label-hidden”> < div class=”field__items”> < div class=”field__item even”> Bumble markets itself as a safe dating app, but it may be selling your deeply personal data unless you opt-out—risking your privacy for their profit. Despite repeated…
EFF Tells Yet Another Court to Ensure Everyone Has Access to the Law and Reject Private Gatekeepers
< div class=”field field–name-body field–type-text-with-summary field–label-hidden”> < div class=”field__items”> Our laws belong to all of us, and we should be able to find, read, and comment on them free of registration requirements, fees, and other roadblocks. That means private organizations…
EFF at the Las Vegas Hacker Conferences
< div class=”field field–name-body field–type-text-with-summary field–label-hidden”> < div class=”field__items”> < div class=”field__item even”> < div class=”field field–name-body field–type-text-with-summary field–label-hidden”> < div class=”field__items”> Las Vegas is blazing hot and that means it’s time for EFF to return to the hacker summer…
Support Justice for Digital Creators and Tech Users
< div class=”field field–name-body field–type-text-with-summary field–label-hidden”> < div class=”field__items”> People work at EFF because they believe in wringing justice from a world that’s often unfair. For us, setting things right means legal work, activism, convincing policymakers, and creating tech tools…
To Fight Surveillance Pricing, We Need Privacy First
< div class=”field field–name-body field–type-text-with-summary field–label-hidden”> < div class=”field__items”> < div class=”field__item even”> Digital surveillance is ubiquitous. Corporate snoops collect information about everything we do, everywhere we go, and everyone we communicate with. Then they compile it, store it, and use…
EFF to Ninth Circuit: Don’t Shield Foreign Spyware Company from Human Rights Accountability in U.S. Court
< div class=”field field–name-body field–type-text-with-summary field–label-hidden”> < div class=”field__items”> < div class=”field__item even”> Legal intern Danya Hajjaji was the lead author of this post. EFF filed an amicus brief in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit supporting…
Federal Appeals Court Rules That Fair Use May Be Narrowed to Serve Hollywood Profits
< div class=”field field–name-body field–type-text-with-summary field–label-hidden”> < div class=”field__items”> < div class=”field__item even”> Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act is a ban on reading any copyrighted work that is encumbered by access restrictions. It makes it illegal for…
Here Are EFF’s Sacramento Priorities Right Now
< div class=”field field–name-body field–type-text-with-summary field–label-hidden”> < div class=”field__items”> < div class=”field__item even”> California is one of the nation’s few full-time state legislatures. That means advocates have to track and speak up on hundreds of bills that move through the…
Google Breaks Promise to Block Third-Party Cookies
< div class=”field field–name-body field–type-text-with-summary field–label-hidden”> < div class=”field__items”> < div class=”field__item even”> Last week, Google backtracked on its long-standing promise to block third-party cookies in Chrome. This is bad for your privacy and good for Google’s business. Third-party cookies…
Victory! D.C. Circuit Rules in Favor of Animal Rights Activists Censored on Government Social Media Pages
< div class=”field field–name-body field–type-text-with-summary field–label-hidden”> < div class=”field__items”> < div class=”field__item even”> In a big win for free speech online, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruled that a federal agency violated the First Amendment when…
CrowdStrike, Antitrust, and the Digital Monoculture
< div class=”field field–name-body field–type-text-with-summary field–label-hidden”> < div class=”field__items”> < div class=”field__item even”> Last month’s unprecedented global IT failure should be a wakeup call. Decades of antitrust inaction have made many industries dangerously reliant on the same tools, making such…
Texas Wins $1.4 Billion Biometric Settlement Against Meta. It Would Have Happened Sooner With Consumer Enforcement
< div class=”field field–name-body field–type-text-with-summary field–label-hidden”> < div class=”field__items”> < div class=”field__item even”> In Texas’ first public enforcement of its biometric privacy law, Meta agreed to pay $1.4 billion to settle claims that its now-defunct face recognition system violated state…
Our Last Chance to Stop KOSA | EFFector 36.10
EFF is chugging along, continuing to push for your rights online! We’re sending out a last call for supporters to tell Congress to vote NO on the Kids Online Safety Act, exposing the flaws of the UN Cybercrime Treaty, and…
Security Researchers and Journalists at Risk: Why You Should Hate the Proposed UN Cybercrime Treaty
< div class=”field field–name-body field–type-text-with-summary field–label-hidden”> < div class=”field__items”> < div class=”field__item even”> The proposed UN Cybercrime Treaty puts security researchers and journalists at risk of being criminally prosecuted for their work identifying and reporting computer system vulnerabilities, work that…
Calls Mount—from Principal UN Human Rights Official, Business, and Tech Groups—To Address Dangerous Flaws in Draft UN Surveillance Treaty
< div class=”field field–name-body field–type-text-with-summary field–label-hidden”> < div class=”field__items”> < div class=”field__item even”> As UN delegates sat down in New York this week to restart negotiations, calls are mounting from all corners—from the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights…
Certbot Use Continues to Grow
< div class=”field field–name-body field–type-text-with-summary field–label-hidden”> < div class=”field__items”> EFF’s Certbot is now installed on over 4 million web servers, where it’s used to maintain HTTPS certificates for more than 31 million websites. The recent achievement of these milestones helps…
The KOSA Internet Censorship Bill Just Passed The Senate—It’s Our Last Chance To Stop It
< div class=”field field–name-body field–type-text-with-summary field–label-hidden”> < div class=”field__items”> < div class=”field__item even”> The Senate just passed a bill that will let the federal and state governments investigate and sue websites that they claim cause kids mental distress. It’s a terrible…
Weak Human Rights Protections: Why You Should Hate the Proposed UN Cybercrime Treaty
The proposed UN Cybercrime Convention dangerously undermines human rights, opening the door to unchecked cross-border surveillance and government overreach. Despite two and a half years of negotiations, the draft treaty authorizes extensive surveillance powers without robust safeguards, omitting essential data…
Senators Expose Car Companies’ Terrible Data Privacy Practices
< div class=”field field–name-body field–type-text-with-summary field–label-hidden”> < div class=”field__items”> < div class=”field__item even”> In a letter to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) last week, Senators Ron Wyden and Edward Markey urged the FTC to investigate several car companies caught selling…
EFF’s Concerns About the UN Draft Cybercrime Convention
< div class=”field field–name-body field–type-text-with-summary field–label-hidden”> < div class=”field__items”> < div class=”field__item even”> The proposed UN Cybercrime Convention is an extensive surveillance pact that imposes intrusive domestic surveillance measures and mandates states’ cooperation in surveillance and data sharing. It requires…
Why You Should Hate the Proposed UN Cybercrime Treaty
International UN treaties aren’t usually on users’ radar. They are debated, often over the course of many years, by diplomats and government functionaries in Vienna or New York, and their significance is often overlooked or lost in the flood of…
Digital Apartheid in Gaza: Unjust Content Moderation at the Request of Israel’s Cyber Unit
< div class=”field field–name-body field–type-text-with-summary field–label-hidden”> < div class=”field__items”> < div class=”field__item even”> This is part one of an ongoing series. Government involvement in content moderation raises serious human rights concerns in every context. Since October 7, social media platforms…
Electronic Frontier Foundation to Present Annual EFF Awards to Carolina Botero, Connecting Humanity, and 404 Media
2024 Awards Will Be Presented in a Live Ceremony Thursday, Sept. 12 in San Francisco < div class=”field field–name-body field–type-text-with-summary field–label-hidden”> < div class=”field__items”> < div class=”field__item even”> SAN FRANCISCO—The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is honored to announce that Carolina…
Briefing: Negotiating States Must Address Human Rights Risks in the Proposed UN Surveillance Treaty
At a virtual briefing today, experts from the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), Access Now, Derechos Digitales, Human Rights Watch, and the International Fund for Public Interest Media outlined the human rights risks posed by the proposed UN Cybercrime Treaty. They…
Journalists Sue Massachusetts TV Corporation Over Bogus YouTube Takedown Demands
Posting Video Clips of Government Meetings Is Fair Use That Doesn’t Violate the DMCA, EFF’s Clients Argue < div class=”field field–name-body field–type-text-with-summary field–label-hidden”> < div class=”field__items”> < div class=”field__item even”> BOSTON—A citizen journalists’ group represented by the Electronic Frontier Foundation…
Supreme Court Dodges Key Question in Murthy v. Missouri and Dismisses Case for Failing to Connect The Government’s Communication to Specific Platform Moderation
< div class=”field field–name-body field–type-text-with-summary field–label-hidden”> < div class=”field__items”> < div class=”field__item even”> We don’t know a lot more about when government jawboning social media companies—that is, attempting to pressure them to censor users’ speech— violates the First Amendment; but…