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 the continued fight against the UN Cybercrime Trea … | Continue reading
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 concern – but every one just generates new problems. Case in point: the NO FAKES Act. We flagged numero … | Continue reading
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 First Amendment, and that other parts require further review by the lower court. The U.S. Court of Appeals for t … | Continue reading
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 the Digital Services Act, and to set a high standard for the protection of fundamental rights, including freedo … | Continue reading
“Shuffle up and deal!” announced Cory Doctorow and the sound of playing cards and poker chips filled the room. The sci-fi author and EFF special advisor was this year’s Celebrity Emcee for the 3rd annual EFF Benefit Poker Tournament, an official contest at the DEF CON computer ha … | Continue reading
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 many cars, from GPS tracking to oil-change notices. Th … | Continue reading
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 the security research community. While we were at DEF CON 32, security researcher Dennis Giese received a cease-and-d … | Continue reading
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 education and litigation, naming us “Defenders of the Hacker Spirit.” DEF CON Uber Contributor Award EFF Staff Att … | Continue reading
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 these cases is a critically important principle that sets limits on government’s ability to control the on … | Continue reading
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. When EFF tried to intervene and push for greater access to a patent dispute earlier this year, the U. … | Continue reading
Please join EFF for the next segment of EFFecting Change, our newest livestream series, diving into topics near and dear to our hearts. August 28: Reproductive Justice in the Digital Age This summer marks the two-year anniversary of the Dobbs decision overturning Roe v. Wade. Joi … | Continue reading
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 Assembly for final approval. The last hours of deliberations were marked by drama as Iran repeatedly, though unsuccess … | Continue reading
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 October 7 attack, U.S.-based companies like Google and Amazon have been under pressure to reveal more about the services they pr … | Continue reading
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 EFF has made in a number of cases, the court found that geofence warrants constitute the sort … | Continue reading
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 everywhere and in every fight, which is why back in 2016 we committed to building a network with grassroots organizations, … | Continue reading
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 ban on government FRT use. Half-measures aren't up to the task. However, ev … | Continue reading
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 requests, Bumble hasn’t confirmed if they sell or share user data, and its policy is also unclear about whether a … | Continue reading
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 shouldn’t be able to control who can read and share the law, or where and how we can do those thi … | Continue reading
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 tip the balance of power back toward you. Will you move that mission forward … | Continue reading
Las Vegas is blazing hot and that means it's time for EFF to return to the hacker summer camp conferences—BSidesLV, Black Hat USA and DEF CON—to rally behind computer security researchers and tinkerers. EFF is glad to support members of this community all year long. Computer secu … | Continue reading
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 it against us. Increasingly, companies exploit this information to set individualized price … | Continue reading
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 a group of journalists in their lawsuit against Israeli spyware company NSO Group. In our amicus brief backing the plaintiffs’ appe … | Continue reading
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 you to read and understand the code that determines how your phone or car works and whether those devices are safe. It … | Continue reading
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 legislative process on a strict schedule between January and August every year. The legislature has been adjourned for a … | Continue reading
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 are a pervasive tracking technology that allow companies to snoop on your online activity for survei … | Continue reading
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 it blocked animal rights activists from commenting on the agency’s social media pages. We filed an amicus brief in the case, joined by … | Continue reading
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 crises inevitable. We must demand regulators break up the digital monocultures that are creating a less … | Continue reading
The Atlanta Police Department has been snooping on social media to closely monitor the meetings, protests, canvassing–even book clubs and pizza parties–of the political movement to stop “Cop City,” a police training center that would destroy part of an urban forest. Activists alr … | Continue reading
The draft UN Cybercrime Convention was supposed to help tackle serious online threats like ransomware attacks, which cost billions of dollars in damages every year. But, after two and a half years of negotiations among UN Member States, the draft treaty’s broad rules for collecti … | Continue reading
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 law. The law was first passed in 2001. As part of the Texas settlement, Meta (formerly Facebook) can seek … | Continue reading
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 continuing to update Privacy Badger to protect your privac … | Continue reading
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 keeps the digital ecosystem safer for everyone. The proposed text fails to exempt … | Continue reading
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 (OHCHR) to Big Tech—to add critical human rights protections to, and fix other major flaws in, the proposed UN su … | Continue reading
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 show the success of the project and the important role it plays in the infrastructure o … | Continue reading
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 idea to let politicians and bureaucrats decide what people should read and view online, but the Senate passed KOS … | Continue reading
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 safe … | Continue reading
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 and sharing customer information without clear consent. Alongside details previously gathered from reporting by The … | Continue reading
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 states to aid each other in cybercrime investigations and prosecutions, all … | Continue reading
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 information and news we process eve … | Continue reading
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 have been challenged for the unjustified takedowns of pro-Palestinian content—sometimes at the reques … | Continue reading
2024 Awards Will Be Presented in a Live Ceremony Thursday, Sept. 12 in San Francisco SAN FRANCISCO—The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is honored to announce that Carolina Botero, Connecting Humanity, and 404 Media will receive the 2024 EFF Awards for their vital work in ens … | Continue reading
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 explained … | Continue reading
Posting Video Clips of Government Meetings Is Fair Use That Doesn’t Violate the DMCA, EFF’s Clients Argue BOSTON—A citizen journalists’ group represented by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) filed a federal lawsuit today against a Massachusetts community-access television … | Continue reading
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 we do know that lawsuits based on such actions will be hard to win. In Murthy v. Missouri, the U.S. Supr … | Continue reading
The latest update of Privacy Badger opts users out of ad tracking through Google’s “Privacy Sandbox.” Privacy Sandbox is Google’s way of letting advertisers keep targeting ads based on your online behavior, even after Chrome completes its long overdue phaseout of third-party cook … | Continue reading
Countries That Believe in Rule of Law Must Push Back on Draft that Expands Spying Powers, Benefiting Authoritarian Regimes SAN FRANCISCO—On Wednesday, July 24, at 11:00 am Eastern Time (8:00 am Pacific Time, 5:00 pm CET), experts from Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), Access … | Continue reading
We haven’t seen the end of invasive geofence warrants just yet, despite Google’s big announcement late last year that it was fundamentally changing how it collects location data. Today, EFF is filing an amicus brief in the Minnesota Supreme Court in State v. Contreras-Sanchez, in … | Continue reading
With the final negotiating session to approve the UN Cybercrime Treaty just days away, EFF and 21 international civil society organizations today urgently called on delegates from EU states and the European Commission to push back on the draft convention's many flaws, from the ex … | Continue reading