An Open Letter on Election SecurityVoting is the cornerstone of our democracy. And since computers are deeply involved in all segments of voting at this point, computer security is vital to the protection of this fundamental right. Everyone needs to be able to trust that the crit … | Continue reading
EFF has published a new report, "Surveillance Compounded: Real-Time Crime Centers in the United States," which profiles seven surveillance hubs operated by local law enforcement, plus data on dozens of others scattered across the country. Researched and written in collaboration w … | Continue reading
San Francisco—The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) called on universities that have launched or plan to launch COVID-19 tracking technologies—which sometimes collect sensitive data from users’ devices and lack adequate transparency or privacy protections—to make them entirely … | Continue reading
Since the COVID-19 crisis began, many universities have looked to novel technologies to assist their efforts to retain in-person operations. Most prominent are untested contact tracing and notification applications or devices. While universities must commit to public health, too … | Continue reading
Since the COVID-19 crisis began, many universities have looked to novel technologies to assist their efforts to retain in-person operations. Most prominent are untested contact tracing and notification applications or devices. While universities must commit to public health, too … | Continue reading
Next time you hear someone blame Section 230 for a problem with social media platforms, ask yourself two questions: first, was this problem actually caused by Section 230? Second, would weakening Section 230 solve the problem? Politicians and commentators on both sides of the ais … | Continue reading
Five years have passed since InternetLab published “Quem Defende Seus Dados?" (“Who defends your data?"), a report that holds ISPs accountable for their privacy and data protection policies in Brazil. Since then, major Brazilian telecom companies have provided more transparency a … | Continue reading
In the final days of the administration, Andre Iancu, President Trump’s Director of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, is trying to push through permanent rule changes that would destroy the post-grant review system. Iancu is going all out to weaken “inter partes review” proce … | Continue reading
The people of Massachusetts demanded their right to repair this month, passing a ballot initiative to allow independent repair shops to access critical information about their cars by an overwhelming 74.9% majority. Now, automakers—whose scare tactics and false privacy and securi … | Continue reading
EFF is excited to participate this weekend in a virtual version of the annual Aaron Swartz Day and International Hackathon—a day dedicated to celebrating the continuing legacy of activist, programmer, and entrepreneur Aaron Swartz. Join EFF Senior Researcher Dave Maass and priva … | Continue reading
Episode 001 of EFF’s How to Fix the InternetJulian Sanchez joins EFF hosts Cindy Cohn and Danny O’Brien as they delve into the problems with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, also known as the FISC or the FISA Court. Sanchez explains how the FISA Court signs off on sur … | Continue reading
Episode 002 of EFF’s How to Fix the InternetGigi Sohn joins EFF hosts Cindy Cohn and Danny O’Brien as they discuss broadband access in the United States – or the lack thereof. Gigi explains the choices American policymakers and tech companies made that have caused millions to lac … | Continue reading
Today EFF is launching How to Fix the Internet, a new podcast mini-series to examine potential solutions to six ills facing the modern digital landscape. Over the course of 6 episodes, we’ll consider how current tech policy isn’t working well for users and invite experts to join … | Continue reading
Everyone wants an election that is secure and reliable. With technology in the mix, making sure that the technology supports this is critical. EFF has long-warned against blindly adopting technologies that can be easily manipulated or fail without having systems in place to test, … | Continue reading
It’s been 10 years since the beta release of EFF’s HTTPS Everywhere web browser extension. It encrypts your communications with websites, making your browsing more secure. HTTPS has journeyed it’s way from an urgent recommendation to a main component of traffic of our everyday we … | Continue reading
Clearview AI extracts faceprints from billions of people, without their consent, and uses these faceprints to offer a service to law enforcement agencies seeking to identify suspects in photos. Following an exposé by the New York Times this past January, Clearview faces more than … | Continue reading
"youtube-dl" is a popular free software tool for downloading videos from YouTube and other user-uploaded video platforms. GitHub recently took down youtube-dl’s code repository at the behest of the Recording Industry Association of America, potentially stopping many thousands of … | Continue reading
Since its founding in the 1930s, Hewlett-Packard has been synonymous with innovation, and many's the engineer who had cause to praise its workhorse oscillators, minicomputers, servers, and PCs. But since the turn of this century, the company's changed its name to HP and its focus … | Continue reading
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EFF turned thirty this year. In our three decades of work, we’ve seen huge shifts in the way technology and the Internet help, harm, and otherwise influence the lives of nearly everyone on the planet—and that includes its enormous influence on electoral politics. Our thirty-year … | Continue reading
Turkey's recent history is rife with human rights-stifling legislation and practices. The Internet Law, its amendments, and the recent decision of Turkey’s regulator (BTK) further cemented that trend. The Internet Law and amendments require large platforms to appoint a local repr … | Continue reading
This is not a drill. Red alert: The police surveillance center in Jackson, Mississippi, will be conducting a 45-day pilot program to live stream the Amazon Ring cameras of participating residents. Since Ring first made a splash in the private security camera market, we’ve been wa … | Continue reading
EFF opposes police Body Worn Cameras (BWCs), unless they come with strict safeguards to ensure they actually promote officer accountability without surveilling the public. Police already have too many surveillance technologies, and deploy them all too frequently against people of … | Continue reading
If you are on Instagram, you have been probably bombarded by Instagram Stories and notifications about new features like emojis, chat themes, selfie stickers, and “cross-platform messaging” that will allow you to exchange direct messages with, and search for, friends who are on F … | Continue reading
The video downloading utility youtube-dl, like other large open source projects, accepts contributions from all around the globe. It is used practically wherever there's an Internet connection. It's especially shocking, therefore, when what looks like a domestic legal spat–involv … | Continue reading
The upcoming US elections have invited broad attention to many of the questions with which civil society has struggled for years: What should companies do about misinformation and hate speech? And what, specifically, should be done when that speech is coming from the world’s most … | Continue reading
And universities must stand up for the rights of their faculty and students.During the past eight months of the pandemic, we have collectively spent more time online than ever before. Many of us are working and/or learning from home, and staying in touch with friends and family t … | Continue reading
IPANDETEC, the leading digital rights organization in Panama, today released its second annual Who Defends Your Data" (¿Quién Defiende Tus Datos?) report assessing how well the country’s mobile phone and Internet service providers (ISPs) are protecting users' communications data. … | Continue reading
The Big Internet Companies Are Too Powerful, But Undermining Section 230 Won’t HelpThe Senate Commerce Committee met this week to question the heads of Facebook, Twitter, and Google about Section 230, the most important law protecting free speech online. Section 230 reflects the … | Continue reading
Have you tried modifying, repairing, or diagnosing a product but bumped into encryption, a password requirement, or some other technological roadblock that got in the way? EFF wants your stories to help us fight for your right to get around those obstacles.Section 1201 of the Dig … | Continue reading
The International Trade Commission, or ITC, is a federal agency in Washington D.C. that investigates unfair trade practices. Unfortunately, in recent years, it has also become a magnet for some of the worst abusers of the U.S. patent system. Now, there’s a bill in Congress, the P … | Continue reading
The antitrust lawsuit against Google filed by the Department of Justice (DOJ) and eleven state attorneys general has the potential to be the most important competition case against a technology company since the DOJ’s 1998 suit against Microsoft. The complaint is broad, covering … | Continue reading
The pledge period for the Combined Federal Campaign (CFC) is underway and EFF needs your help! Last year, U.S. government employees raised over $19,000 for EFF through the CFC, helping us fight for privacy, free speech, and security on the Internet so that we can help create a be … | Continue reading
With increasing frequency, law enforcement is using unconstitutional digital dragnet searches to attempt to identify unknown suspects in criminal cases. In Commonwealth v. Dunkins, currently pending before the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, EFF and the ACLU are challenging a new typ … | Continue reading
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A legacy of the 2016 U.S. election is the controversy about the role played by paid, targeted political ads, particularly ads that contain disinformation or misinformation. Political scientists and psychologists disagree about how these ads work, and what effect they have. It's a … | Continue reading
Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act forbids a wide range of speech, from remix videos that rely upon circumvention, to academic security research, to publication of software that can help repair your car or back up your favorite show. It potentially implicates th … | Continue reading
Copyright law is supposed to promote creativity, not stamp out criticism. Too often, copyright owners forget that – especially when they have a convenient takedown tool like the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).EFF is happy to remind them – as we did this month on behalf o … | Continue reading
With the upcoming U.S. elections, major U.S.-based platforms have stepped up their content moderation practices, likely hoping to avoid the blame heaped upon them after the 2016 election, where many held them responsible for siloing users into ideological bubbles—and, in Facebook … | Continue reading
One bad privacy idea that won’t die is the so-called “data dividend,” which imagines a world where companies have to pay you in order to use your data.Sound too good to be true? It is. Let’s be clear: getting paid for your data—probably no more than a handful of dollars at most—i … | Continue reading
At the end of September, multiple press outlets published leaked set of antimonopoly enforcement proposals proposed for the a new EU Digital Market Act , which EU officials say they will finalize this year.The proposals confront the stark fact that the Internet has been thoroughl … | Continue reading
This is an Open Access Week guest post by Jordan Bunker, prototype engineer and open access advocate.After the world went into lockdown for COVID-19, Makers were suddenly confined to their workshops. Rather than idly wait it out, many of them decided to put their tools and skills … | Continue reading
EFF, joined by several leading civil liberties and immigrant rights organizations, recently filed a comment calling on the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to withdraw a proposed rule that would exponentially expand biometrics collection from both U.S. citizens and noncitize … | Continue reading
Imagine learning that you were wiretapped by law enforcement, but couldn’t get any information about why. That’s what happened to retired California Highway Patrol officer Miguel Guerrero, and EFF sued on his behalf to get more information about the surveillance. This week, a Cal … | Continue reading
San Francisco—The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) told the City of Vallejo that its practice of blocking people and deleting comments on social media because it doesn't like their messages is illegal under the First Amendment, and demanded that it stop engaging in such viewp … | Continue reading
It is a fundamental precept, at least in the United States, that the public should have access to the courts–including court records–and any departure from that rule must be narrow and well-justified. In a nation bound by the rule of law, the public must have the ability to know … | Continue reading
The sudden move to remote education by universities this year has forced the inevitable: the move to an online education. While most universities won’t be fully remote, having course materials online was already becoming the norm before the COVID-19 pandemic, and this year it has … | Continue reading
Hiperderecho, Peru’s leading digital rights organization, has launched today its third ¿Quién Defiende Tus Datos? (Who Defends you Data)--a report that seeks to hold telecom companies accountable for their users’ privacy. The new Peruvian edition shows improvements compared to 20 … | Continue reading