Recently I traveled to Portland, Oregon to speak at the PDX People’s Digital Safety Fair, meet up with five groups in the Electronic Frontier Alliance, and attend BSides PDX 2024. Portland’s first ever Digital Safety Fair was a success and five of our six EFA organizations in the … | Continue reading
Good news: the Senate Judiciary Committee has dropped one of the two terrible patent bills it was considering, the patent-troll-enabling Patent Eligibility Restoration Act (PERA). Bad news: the committee is still pushing the PREVAIL Act, a bill that would hamstring the U.S.’s mos … | Continue reading
The Biden White House has released a memorandum on “Advancing United States’ Leadership in Artificial Intelligence” which includes, among other things, a directive for the National Security apparatus to become a world leader in the use of AI. Under direction from the White House, … | Continue reading
The Combined Federal Campaign (CFC) pledge period is underway and runs through January 15, 2024! If you're a U.S. federal employee or retiree, be sure to show your support for EFF by using our CFC ID 10437. Not sure how to make a pledge? No problem--it’s easy! First, head over to … | Continue reading
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.* Marjorie Heins is a writer, former civil rights/civil liberties attorney, and past director of the Free Expression Policy Project (FEPP) and the American Civil Liberties Union's Arts Censorship Project. She is the author of … | Continue reading
Today marks prominent British-Egyptian coder, blogger, activist, and political prisoner Alaa Abd El Fattah’s 43rd birthday—his eleventh behind bars. Alaa should have been released on September 29, but Egyptian authorities have continued his imprisonment in contravention of the co … | Continue reading
Now, of course, we’ve all dropped a cell phone, picked it up, and realized that we’ve absolutely destroyed its screen. Right? Or is it just me...? Either way, you’ve probably seen how expensive it can be to repair a device, whether it be a cell phone, laptop, or even a washing ma … | Continue reading
Don't be scared of your backlog of digital rights news, instead, check out EFF's EFFector newsletter! It's the one-stop-shop to keeping up with the latest in the fight for online freedoms. This time we cover our expectations and preparations for the next U.S. presidential adminis … | Continue reading
This week, the Senate Judiciary Committee is set to use its limited time in the lame-duck session to vote on a bill that would make the patent system even worse. The Patent Eligibility Restoration Act (S. 2140), or PERA, would undo vital limits on computer technology patents that … | Continue reading
*This interview took place in April 2024 at NetMundial+10 in São Paulo, Brazil and has been edited for length and clarity. Tanka Aryal is the President of Digital Rights Nepal. He is an attorney practicing at the Supreme Court of Nepal. He has long worked to promote digital right … | Continue reading
404 Media, along with Haaretz, Notus, and Krebs On Security recently reported on a company that captures smartphone location data from a variety of sources and collates that data into an easy-to-use tool to track devices’ (and, by proxy, individuals’) locations. The dangers that … | Continue reading
Aaron Swartz was a digital rights champion who believed deeply in keeping the internet open. His life was cut short in 2013, after federal prosecutors charged him under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) for systematically downloading academic journal articles from the onlin … | Continue reading
EFF, along with ACLU and the New York Civil Liberties Union, filed an amicus brief in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit urging the court to require a warrant for border searches of electronic devices, an argument EFF has been making in the courts and Congress for n … | Continue reading
This post was co-written by EFF legal intern Gowri Nayar. X’s lawsuit against the nonprofit Center for Countering Digital Hate is intended to stifle criticism and punish the organization for its reports criticizing the platform’s content moderation practices, and a previous rulin … | Continue reading
The dust of the U.S. election is settling, and we want you to know that EFF is ready for whatever’s next. Our mission to ensure that technology serves you—rather than silencing, tracking, or oppressing you—does not change. Some of what’s to come will be in uncharted territory. Bu … | Continue reading
The integration of artificial intelligence (AI) into our criminal justice system is one of the most worrying developments across policing and the courts, and EFF has been tracking it for years. EFF recently contributed a chapter on AI’s use by law enforcement to the American Bar … | Continue reading
Despite rebranding a federal program that surveils the social media activities of immigrants and foreign visitors to a more benign name, the government agreed to spend more than $100 million to continue monitoring people’s online activities, records disclosed to EFF show. Thousan … | Continue reading
In 2022, three companies with strange names and no clear business purpose beyond patent litigation filed dozens of lawsuits in Delaware federal court, accusing businesses of all sizes of patent infringement. Some of these complaints claimed patent rights over basic aspects of mod … | Continue reading
This post was written by Gowri Nayar, an EFF legal intern. Imagine driving to get your nails done with your family and all of a sudden, you are pulled over by police officers for allegedly driving a stolen car. You are dragged out of the car and detained at gun point. So are your … | Continue reading
The short answer is no, probably not! But, with EFF’s new site, Digital Rights Bytes, we go in-depth on this question—and many others. Whether you’re just starting to question some of the effects of technology in your life or you’re the designated tech wizard of your family looki … | Continue reading
New Site Dishes Up Byte-Sized, Yummy, Nutritious Videos and Other Information About Your Online Life SAN FRANCISCO—The Electronic Frontier Foundation today launched “Digital Rights Bytes,” a new website with short videos offering quick, easily digestible answers to the technology … | Continue reading
Activism comes in many forms. You might hold a rally, write to Congress, or fly a blimp over the NSA. Or you might use a darkly hilarious parody to make your point, like our client Modest Proposals recently did. Modest Proposals is an activist collective that uses parody and cult … | Continue reading
The future of the open internet is in danger this October 31st, not from ghosts and goblins, but from the broadband companies that control internet access in most of the United States. These companies would love to use their oligopoly power to charge users and websites additional … | Continue reading
California’s 2024 legislative session has officially adjourned, and it’s time to reflect on the wins and losses that have shaped Californians’ digital rights landscape this year. EFF monitored nearly 100 bills in the state this session alone, addressing a broad range of issues re … | Continue reading
The Consumer Finance Protection Bureau (CFPB) has just finalized a rule that makes it easy and safe for you to figure out which bank will give you the best deal and switch to that bank, with just a couple of clicks. We love this kind of thing: the coolest thing about a digital wo … | Continue reading
A federal court recently ordered Google to make it easier for Android users to switch to rival app stores, banned Google from using its vast cash reserves to block competitors, and hit Google with a bundle of thou-shalt-nots and assorted prohibitions. Each of these measures is we … | Continue reading
Artificial intelligence dominated the technology talk on panels, among sponsors, and across the trade floor at this year’s annual conference of the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP). IACP, held Oct. 19 - 22 in Boston, brings together thousands of police employe … | Continue reading
This year, a far-reaching, complex new piece of legislation comes into effect in EU: the Digital Markets Act (DMA), which represents some of the most ambitious tech policy in European history. We don’t love everything in the DMA, but some of its provisions are great, because they … | Continue reading
Safe trick-or-treating this Halloween means being aware of the real monsters of street-level surveillance. You might not always see these menaces, but they are watching you. The real-world harms of these terrors wreak havoc on our communities. Here, we highlight just a few of the … | Continue reading
At EFF, our work always begins from the same place: technological self-determination. That’s the right to decide which technology you use, and how you use it. Technological self-determination is important for every technology user, and it’s especially important for users with dis … | Continue reading
It’s been 25 days since September 29, the day that should have seen British-Egyptian blogger, coder, and activist Alaa Abd El Fattah walk free. Egyptian authorities refused to release him at the end of his sentence, in contradiction of the country's own Criminal Procedure Code, w … | Continue reading
It’s been 25 days since September 29, the day that should have seen British-Egyptian blogger, coder, and activist Alaa Abd El Fattah walk free. Egyptian authorities refused to release him at the end of his sentence, in contradiction of the country's own Criminal Procedure Code, w … | Continue reading
We at EFF have long recognized the threats posed by the unchecked technological prowess of law enforcement and intelligence agencies. Since our founding in 1990, we have been in the forefront of efforts to impose meaningful legal controls and accountability on the secretive activ … | Continue reading
EFF has joined with 23 other organizations including the ACLU, Restore the Fourth, the Brennan Center for Justice, Access Now, and the Freedom of the Press Foundation to demand that the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) furnish the public with an estimate of … | Continue reading
When someone is placed on location monitoring for one purpose, it does not justify law enforcement’s access to that information for a completely different purpose without a proper warrant. EFF joined the Committee for Public Counsel Services, ACLU, ACLU of Massachusetts, and the … | Continue reading
A new bombshell scoop from NBC News revealed an internal U.S. Border Patrol memo claiming that 30 percent of camera towers that compose the agency's "Remote Video Surveillance System" (RVSS) program are broken. According to the report, the memo describes "several technical proble … | Continue reading
EFF legal intern Nick Delehanty was the principal author of this post. EFF filed an amicus brief in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in support of TikTok’s request that the full court reconsider the case Anderson v. TikTok after a three-judge panel ruled that Secti … | Continue reading
Antitrust law has long recognized that monopolies stifle innovation and gouge consumers on price. When it comes to Big Tech, harm to innovation—in the form of “kill zones,” where major corporations buy up new entrants to a market before they can compete with them—has been easy to … | Continue reading
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 regulates how law enforcement agencies can use, purchase, and disclose information about military equipment at their dis … | Continue reading
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 police reports...for now. This is a good development. We hope prosecutors across the country will exercise such c … | Continue reading
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 agree. In the 1990s, the tobacco industry attempted to use federal law to override a broad swath of existing state laws and prevent … | Continue reading
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, trying use copyright law to control access to other laws. They claim that that they own the copyright in the t … | Continue reading
First-Ever, Three-Year Pact Protects Workers’ Pay, Benefits, Working Conditions, and More SAN FRANCISCO—Employees and management at the Electronic Frontier Foundation have achieved a first-ever labor contract, they jointly announced today. EFF employees have joined the Engineers … | Continue reading
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 face recognition technology, and in doing so recognized EFF’s expertise on this issue. The Co … | Continue reading
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 is no exception. With the use of artificial in … | Continue reading
Young people have a right to speak and access information online. Legislatures should remember that protecting kids' online safety shouldn't require sweeping online surveillance and censorship. EFF reminded the New York Attorney General of this important fact in comments respondi … | Continue reading
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 wherever your regular ID works—TSA, liquor stores, to pick up a prescription, or to get into a bar. This sounds simple e … | Continue reading
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 really enlightening talk in March 2023 with Alice Marwick, the director of research at Data … | Continue reading