It’s time for the second installment of campfire tales from our friends, The Encryptids—the rarely-seen enigmas who’ve become folk legends. They’re helping us celebrate EFF’s summer membership drive for internet freedom! Through EFF's 34th birthday on July 10, you can receive 2 r … | Continue reading
This post was written by EFF legal intern Danya Hajjaji. Law enforcement should be required to obtain a warrant to search data contained in abandoned cell phones, EFF and others explained in a friend-of-the-court brief to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. The case, United State … | Continue reading
The Electronic Frontier Alliance is proud to have such a diverse membership, and is especially proud to ally with Encode Justice. Encode Justice is a community that includes over 1,000 high school and college students across over 40 U.S. states and 30 countries. Organized into ch … | Continue reading
Dozens of policing agencies are currently using cell-site simulators (CSS) by Jacobs Technology and its Engineering Integration Group (EIG), according to newly-available documents on how that company provides CSS capabilities to local law enforcement. A proposal document from Jac … | Continue reading
It’s Day One of EFF’s summer membership drive for internet freedom! Gather round the virtual campfire because I’ve got special treats and a story for you: New member t-shirts and limited-edition gear drop TODAY. Through EFF's 34th birthday on July 10, you can get 2 rare gifts and … | Continue reading
It’s the weekend. You decide you want to do something fun with your family—maybe go to a local festival or park. So, you start searching on your favorite social media app to see what other people are doing. Soon after, you get ads on other platforms about the activities you were … | Continue reading
The proposed UN Cybercrime Convention, scheduled for a critical concluding session from 29 July to August 9th, poses a significant threat to global human rights unless major changes are made. Despite two and a half years of intense discussions and seven negotiation sessions, stat … | Continue reading
The recent wave of protests calling for peace in Palestine have been met with unwarranted and aggressive suppression from law enforcement, universities, and other bad actors. It’s clear that the changing role of surveillance on college campuses exacerbates the dangers faced by al … | Continue reading
As the current leadership of the EU Council enters its final weeks, it is debating a dangerous proposal that could lead to scanning the private files of billions of people. EFF strongly opposes this proposal, put forward by the Belgian Presidency at the EU Council, which is part … | Continue reading
The Canadian House of Commons is currently considering Bill C-26, which would make sweeping amendments to the country’s Telecommunications Act that would expand its Minister of Industry’s power over telecommunication service providers. It’s designed to accomplish a laudable and c … | Continue reading
As we put it in a blog post last month, no single country should be able to restrict speech across the entire internet. That's why EFF celebrates the news that Australia's eSafety Commissioner is dropping its legal effort to have content on X, the website formerly known as Twitte … | Continue reading
You accelerated multiple times on your way to Yosemite for the weekend. You braked when driving to a doctor appointment. If your car has internet capabilities, GPS tracking or OnStar, your car knows your driving history. And now we know: your car insurance carrier might know it, … | Continue reading
Collaging, remixing, sampling—art always has been more than the sum of its parts, a synthesis of elements and ideas that produces something new and thought-provoking. Technology has enabled and advanced this enormously, letting us access and manipulate information and images in w … | Continue reading
It’s bad enough when a patent holder enforcing their rights in court try to exclude the public from those fights. What’s even worse is when courts endorse these secrecy tactics, just as a federal court hearing an EFF unsealing motion ruled in May. EFF continues to push for greate … | Continue reading
In March, the Alaska Supreme Court held in State v. McKelvey that the Alaska Constitution required law enforcement to obtain a warrant before photographing a private backyard from an aircraft. In this case, the police took photographs of Mr. McKelvey’s property, including the con … | Continue reading
Curious about the latest digital rights news? Well, you're in luck! In our latest newsletter we cover topics ranging from: lawmakers planning to sunset the most important law to free expression online, Section 230; our brief regarding data sharing of electronic ankle monitoring d … | Continue reading
If you listen to any podcast long enough, you will almost certainly hear an advertisement for a Virtual Private Network (VPN). These advertisements usually assert that a VPN is the only tool you need to stop cyber criminals, malware, government surveillance, and online tracking. … | Continue reading
As part of the Oversight Board’s consultation on the moderation of social media posts that include reference to the phrase “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” EFF recently submitted comments highlighting that moderation decisions must be made on an individualized … | Continue reading
It’s no fun when your friends ask you to take sides in their disputes. The plans for every dinner party, wedding, and even funeral arrive at a juncture where you find yourself thinking, “Dang, if I invite her, then he won’t come.” It’s even less fun when you’re running an online … | Continue reading
A new statement about strengthening internet governance processes emerged from the NETMundial +10 meeting in Brazil last month, strongly reaffirming the value of and need for a multistakeholder approach involving full and balanced participation of all parties affected by the inte … | Continue reading
Nominations are now open for the 2024 EFF Awards! The nomination window will be open until May 31st at 2:00 PM Pacific time. You could nominate the next winner today! For over thirty years, the Electronic Frontier Foundation presented awards to key leaders and organizations in th … | Continue reading
A Texas age verification law will rob people of anonymity online, chill access to speech for privacy- and security-minded internet users, and entirely block some adults from accessing constitutionally protected online content, EFF argued in a brief filed with the Supreme Court la … | Continue reading
Ethan Zuckerman is a professor at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, where he teaches Public Policy, Communication and Information. He is starting a new research center called the Institute for Digital Public Infrastructure. Over the years, he’s been a tech startup guy ( … | Continue reading
From Napster to YouTube, some of the most important and controversial uses of the internet have been about building community: connecting people all over the world who share similar interests, tastes, views, and concerns. Big corporations try to co-opt and control these communiti … | Continue reading
There is a growing pile of evidence that cities should drop Shotspotter, the notorious surveillance system that purportedly uses acoustic sensors to detect gunshots, due to its inaccuracies and the danger it creates in communities where it’s installed. In yet another blow to the … | Continue reading
In an indictment against Defend the Atlanta Forest activists in Georgia, state prosecutors are citing use of encrypted communications to fearmonger. Alleging the defendants—which include journalists and lawyers, in addition to activists—in the indictment were responsible for a nu … | Continue reading
As Congress appears ready to gut one of the internet’s most important laws for protecting free speech, they are ignoring how that law protects and benefits millions of Americans’ ability to speak online every day. The House Energy and Commerce Committee is holding a hearing on We … | Continue reading
The government violates the privacy rights of individuals on pretrial release when it continuously tracks, retains, and shares their location, EFF explained in a friend-of-the-court brief filed in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. In the case, Simon v. San Francisco, individual … | Continue reading
Montana’s TikTok ban violates the First Amendment, EFF and others told the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in a friend-of-the-court brief and urged the court to affirm a trial court’s holding from December 2023 to that effect. Montana’s ban (which EFF and others opposed) prohibits … | Continue reading
Copyright’s fair use doctrine protects lots of important free expression against the threat of ruinous lawsuits. Fair use isn’t limited to political commentary or erudite works – it also protects popular entertainment like Tiger King, Netflix’s hit 2020 documentary series about t … | Continue reading
Being well into spring, with the weather getting warmer, we knew it was only a matter of time till the Cybertiger awoke from his slumber. But we were prepared. Prepared to quench the Cybertiger's thirst for tech nerds to answer his obscure and fascinating minutiae of tech-related … | Continue reading
On the southwest side of Calexico, a border town in California’s Imperial Valley, a surveillance tower casts a shadow over a baseball field and a residential neighborhood. In 2000, the Immigration and Naturalization Service (the precursor to the Department of Homeland Security (D … | Continue reading
EFF is an organization of lawyers, technologists, policy professionals, and importantly–full-time activists–who fight to make sure that technology enhances rather than threatens civil liberties on a global scale. EFF’s activism team includes experienced issue experts, master comm … | Continue reading
Interviewer: Jillian York Mohamed El Gohary is an open-knowledge enthusiast. After majoring in Biomedical Engineering in October 2010, he switched careers to work as a Social Media manager for Al-Masry Al-Youm newspaper until October 2011, when he joined Global Voices contracts m … | Continue reading
The European Union’s new Digital Markets Act (DMA) is a complex, many-legged beast, but at root, it is a regulation that aims to make it easier for the public to control the technology they use and rely on. One DMA rule forces the powerful “gatekeeper” tech companies to allow thi … | Continue reading
Thanks to weeks of the public speaking up and taking action the FCC has recognized the flaw in their proposed net neutrality rules. The FCC’s final adopted order on net neutrality restores bright line rules against all forms of throttling, once again creating strong federal prote … | Continue reading
A bombshell report from WIRED reveals that two days after the U.S. Congress renewed and expanded the mass-surveillance authority Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the deputy director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Paul Abbate, sent an email … | Continue reading
It’s a simple proposition: no single country should be able to restrict speech across the entire internet. Any other approach invites a swift relay race to the bottom for online expression, giving governments and courts in countries with the weakest speech protections carte blanc … | Continue reading
Let's gather around the campfire and tell tales of the latest happenings in the fight for privacy and free expression online. Take care in roasting your marshmallows while we share ways to protect your data from political campaigns seeking to target you; seek nominees for our ann … | Continue reading
Axon—the makers of widely-used police body cameras and tasers (and that also keeps trying to arm drones)—has a new product: AI that will write police reports for officers. Draft One is a generative large language model machine learning system that reportedly takes audio from body … | Continue reading
Nompilo Simanje is a lawyer by profession and is the Africa Advocacy and Partnerships Lead at the International Press Institute. She leads the IPI Africa Program which monitors and collects data on press freedom threats and violations across the continent, including threats to jo … | Continue reading
Blind and low-vision people have experienced remarkable gains in information literacy because of digital technologies, like being able to access an online library offering more than 1.2 million books that can be translated into text-to-speech or digital Braille. But it can be a l … | Continue reading
A new report from news outlet NOTUS shows that at least two Texas counties along the U.S.-Mexico border have purchased a product that would allow law enforcement to track devices that emit Bluetooth signals, including cell phones, smartwatches, wireless earbuds, and car entertain … | Continue reading
Guide Features Border Tech Photos, Locations, and Explanation of Capabilities SAN FRANCISCO—Sensor towers controlled by AI, drones launched from truck-bed catapults, vehicle-tracking devices disguised as traffic cones—all are part of an arsenal of technologies that comprise the e … | Continue reading
Here at EFF digital equity is something that we advocate for, and we are always thrilled when we hear a member of the Electronic Frontier Alliance is advocating for it as well. Simply put, digital equity is the condition in which everyone has access to technology that allows them … | Continue reading
A companion bill to the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) was introduced in the House last month. Despite minor changes, it suffers from the same fundamental flaws as its Senate counterpart. At its core, this bill is still an unconstitutional censorship bill that restricts protected … | Continue reading
Today marks World Press Freedom Day, an annual celebration instituted by the United Nations in 1993 to raise awareness of press freedom and remind governments of their duties under Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. This year, the day is dedicated to the imp … | Continue reading
Over the last month, lawmakers moved swiftly to pass legislation that would effectively ban TikTok in the United States, eventually including it in a foreign aid package that was signed by President Biden. The impact of this legislation isn’t entirely clear yet, but what is clear … | Continue reading