We're closely watching how Facebook enforces its newly-announced policy that limits speech by users who are organizing public protests. This policy is deserving of special attention since it effects free expression on two levels: the organization of the protest itself, and the sp … | Continue reading
As part of EFF’s response to the COVID-19 crisis, we’ve edited and compiled our critical thoughts on digital rights and the pandemic into an ebook: EFF’s Guide to Digital Rights and the Pandemic. To get the ebook, you can make an optional contribution to support EFF’s work, or yo … | Continue reading
In 2014, the Supreme Court decided the landmark Alice v. CLS Bank case. The Court held generic computers, performing generic computer functions, can’t make something eligible for patent protection. That shouldn’t be controversial, but it took Alice to make this important limitati … | Continue reading
The Unix operating system was created at Bell Labs in 1969. Today, it rules the world. Both Android and iOS are flavors of Unix. So is MacOS. So is GNU/Linux in all its flavors, like Ubuntu and Debian. So is Chrome OS. Virtually every "smart" gadget you own is running some flavor … | Continue reading
Keeping track of ISPs’ commitments to their users, today Paraguay’s leading digital rights organization TEDIC is launching its second edition of ¿Quién Defiende Tus Datos? (Who Defends Your Data?), a report in collaboration with EFF. Transparent practices and firm privacy commitm … | Continue reading
Grassroots activism, in its many forms, allows a community to mobilize around a shared set of ideals and creates an environment whereby participants can share information and resources to help facilitate the advancement of their common aims.The Electronic Frontier Alliance (EFA) … | Continue reading
As governments search in vain for a technological silver bullet that will contain COVID-19 and allow people to safely leave their homes, officials are increasingly turning to drones. Some have floated using them to enforce social distancing, break up or monitor places where gathe … | Continue reading
EFF strongly backs calls, including from California Senate Judiciary Chair Hannah-Beth Jackson, for Governor Gavin Newsom to ensure that his response to this crisis respects Californians’ constitutional right to privacy. We urge the California legislature and Governor Newsom to p … | Continue reading
This week, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals issued an opinion in United States v. Yang, a case challenging the search of an automated license plate reader database under the Fourth Amendment. Although the court, citing EFF’s amicus brief, recognized ALPRs capture massive amount … | Continue reading
On May 5, EFF is joining forces with other nonprofit groups and individuals everywhere for a global day of support called #GivingTuesdayNow. It's a direct response to the unprecedented community and societal needs created by COVID-19. We have been fortunate to see heroic efforts … | Continue reading
Back by popular demand, we're hosting a third At Home with EFF event tomorrow at 2 pm (PT)! In addition to our EFF all-stars, we'll be joined by special guests Şerife Wong, founder of Icarus Salon, and the magical Brad Barton (aka reality thief). As this event coincides with Givi … | Continue reading
In the face of a global pandemic, there is an urgent need for reporting relating to the spread of the coronavirus and how governments are responding. But it is in times of crisis that the civil liberties we value most are put to the test—and that is exactly what is happening now … | Continue reading
San Francisco—In an important victory for thousands of public interest groups around the world, a proposal to sell the .ORG domain registry to private equity firm Ethos Capital and convert it to a for-profit entity was rejected late yesterday by the Internet Corporation for Assig … | Continue reading
In a stunning victory for nonprofits and NGOs around the world working in the public interest, ICANN today roundly rejected Ethos Capital’s plan to transform the .ORG domain registry into a heavily indebted for-profit entity. This is an important victory that recognizes the regis … | Continue reading
New technical proposals to track, contain, and fight COVID-19 are coming out nearly every day, and the distinction between public health strategies, technical approaches, and other terms can be confusing. On this page we attempt to define and disambiguate some of the most commonl … | Continue reading
Even before it announced that it would seek Chapter 11 bankruptcy, Frontier had a well-deserved reputation for mismanagement and abusive conduct. In an industry that routinely enrages its customers, Frontier was the literal poster-child for underinvestment and neglect, an industr … | Continue reading
Jails and prisons now account for many of the largest clusters of confirmed coronavirus cases in the United States. Two prisons in Ohio now have more than 1,500 cases each; nearly a thousand cases are connected to the Cook County jail in Chicago; and a prison in Arkansas has reco … | Continue reading
EFF has filed an amicus brief urging the Tennessee Supreme Court to overturn a court order that would otherwise ban a victim from disclosing that she was subject to domestic violence or from speaking out about the police department’s handling of the investigation. The court order … | Continue reading
Many of the new surveillance powers now sought by the government to address the COVID-19 crisis would harm our First Amendment rights for years to come. People will be chilled and deterred from speaking out, protesting in public places, and associating with like-minded advocates … | Continue reading
Certain patent owners just can’t get enough of the monopoly power patents bestow. That’s why they keep trying to make it easier to get and sue over patents, despite Supreme Court rulings that point in the opposite direction.Their latest effort, the misleadingly-named “Inventors R … | Continue reading
Two Congressmen recently introduced a bill that would create a special type of patent called an “Inventor-Owned Patent.” Having classified a group of “inventors,” the Inventor Rights Act (H.R. 5478) goes on to give them a long list of special privileges that will help them sue ot … | Continue reading
San Francisco—The sale of the .ORG domain registry to private equity firm Ethos Capital threatens to bring censorship and higher operating costs to nonprofit organizations and international NGOs working in the public interest around the globe. The Internet Corporation for Assigne … | Continue reading
Apple and Google are undertaking an unprecedented team effort to build a system for Androids and iPhones to interoperate in the name of technology-assisted COVID-19 contact tracing.The companies’ plan is part of a torrent of proposals to use Bluetooth signal strength to enhance m … | Continue reading
In a major victory for open government and fundamental due process, the Supreme Court ruled today that the annotations in a state’s official legal code—summaries of court decisions and other sources that explain the state’s laws—cannot be copyrighted. That is, that there cannot b … | Continue reading
“The coronavirus, this is their new hoax.” That’s what Donald Trump says—or at least appears to say—in a new political ad airing in states across the country.The ad, created by a Democratic super PAC, strings together audio from various Trump speeches discussing the coronavirus. … | Continue reading
Seattle, Washington—On Tuesday, April 28, at 9 am, Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), and Stanford cybersecurity scholar Riana Pfefferkorn will ask a federal appeals court to embrace the public’s First Amendment right to access judici … | Continue reading
A federal judge dismissed Twitter’s long-pending lawsuit last week over its right to share information about secret government surveillance orders for its users’ information. We hope that Twitter will continue its fight for transparency by appealing this decision.Background: The … | Continue reading
The Presidential Commission on Law Enforcement and the Administration of Justice invited EFF to testify on law enforcement use of face recognition. The Commission, which was established via Executive Order and convened by Attorney General William Barr earlier this year, is tasked … | Continue reading
It’s been a joke for years now, from the days when Facebook was just a website where you said you were eating a sandwich and Instagram was just where you posted photos of said sandwich, but, right now, we really are living our everyday lives online. Teachers are trying to teach c … | Continue reading
This is a technical guide for administrators affected by the STARTTLS Everywhere project. Check out our overview post of the project!The STARTTLS policy list started off as a mechanism for mailservers to learn TLS information about other servers from EFF’s perspective. Since MTA- … | Continue reading
This is an overview of the STARTTLS Everywhere project. If your mailserver is affected by these changes, check out our technical deep-dive to securing your mailserver!EFF started our STARTTLS Everywhere project in 2014, in a post-Snowden moment when the technology community bande … | Continue reading
We're excited to announce our next virtual At Home With EFF event this Wednesday at noon (PT), with special guests Jeff Deutch of Syrian Archive and Mahsa Alimardani of Article 19. Join us for a conversation on content moderation, and the explosion of new, potentially privacy-inv … | Continue reading
ICANN, the organization at the top of the Internet’s domain name system, may be close to deciding whether the takeover of the .ORG domain registry by a private equity firm can go forward. EFF, along with the Domain Name Rights Coalition, NTEN, Access Now, and others, wrote to ICA … | Continue reading
On March 15, 2020, Section 215 of the PATRIOT Act—a surveillance law with a rich history of government overreach and abuse—expired. Along with two other PATRIOT Act provisions, Section 215 lapsed after lawmakers failed to reach an agreement on a broader set of reforms to the Fore … | Continue reading
Experts from the world’s top engineering programs have come together to share knowledge about medical technology, hoping to make life-saving treatments more widely available. Importantly, they’re ensuring that patents, copyrights, and other legal restrictions don’t get between th … | Continue reading
In some areas of the United States, local governments are sharing the names and addresses of people who have tested positive for COVID-19 with police and other first responders. This is intended to keep police, EMTs, and firefighters safe should they find themselves headed to a c … | Continue reading
San Francisco—The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) announced today a call for feedback and recommendations from organizations and individuals around the world to update the landmark 2018 Santa Clara Principles on Transparency and Accountability, which established due process … | Continue reading
Around the world, a diverse and growing chorus is calling for the use of smartphone proximity technology to fight COVID-19. In particular, public health experts and others argue that smartphones could provide a solution to an urgent need for rapid, widespread contact tracing—that … | Continue reading
We are in an unprecedented time. People are being told to stay home as much as possible. Some of us are lucky enough to have jobs that can be done remotely, schools are closed and kids are home, and healthcare, grocery, or other essential workers are looking for respite where the … | Continue reading
Twitter greeted its users with a confusing notification this week. “The control you have over what information Twitter shares with its business partners has changed,” it said. The changes will “help Twitter continue operating as a free service,” it assured. But at what cost?What … | Continue reading
Governments around the world are taking steps to make sure that private corporations don’t use the coronavirus pandemic as an excuse to make unjustified monopoly profits. They’re doing that by ensuring that governments can override patents and issue compulsory licenses for COVID- … | Continue reading
As governments around the world continue to seek solutions to prevent the spread of COVID-19, companies are eager to sell their technology as a silver bullet to defeating the virus. The public already has seen privacy-invasive proposals for geolocation tracking and face recogniti … | Continue reading
Google buying another tech company isn’t new. But Google’s proposed acquisition of Fitbit poses an extraordinary threat to competition and user privacy. Users face having their Fitbit information added to Google’s already large and invasive data pool, and a world that makes it ha … | Continue reading
As governments, the private sector, NGOs, and others mobilize to fight the COVID-19 pandemic, we’ve seen calls to use location information—typically drawn from GPS and cell tower data—to inform public health efforts. Among the proposed uses of location data, one of the most widel … | Continue reading
Senator Lena Gonzalez has introduced legislation (SB 1130), which would allow the California state government to actively promote the transition of the state’s legacy communications infrastructure into a multi-gigabit fiber network that is competitive, affordable, and available t … | Continue reading
The COVID-19 public health crisis has no precedent in living memory. But government demands for new high-tech surveillance powers are all too familiar. This includes well-meaning proposals to use various forms of data about disease transmission among people. Even in the midst of … | Continue reading
Whether you are on Zoom because your employer or school requires it or you just downloaded it to stay in touch with friends and family, people have rushed to the video chat platform in the wake of COVID-19 stay-at-home orders—and journalists, researchers, and regulators have noti … | Continue reading
For most of us, social media has never been more crucial than it is right now: it’s keeping us informed and connected during an unprecedented moment in time. People have been using major platforms for all kinds of things, from following and posting news, to organizing aid—such as … | Continue reading