As we continue the journey of fighting for digital freedoms, it can be hard to keep up on the latest happenings. Thankfully, EFF has a guide to keep you in the loop! EFFector 36.3 is out now and covers the latest news, including recent changes to the Kids Online Safety Act (spoil … | Continue reading
This interview is crossposted from The Markup, a nonprofit news organization that investigates technology and its impact on society. By: Monique O. Madan, Investigative Reporter at The Markup After reading my daily news stories amid his declining health, my grandfather made it a … | Continue reading
After three years of political discussions, MPs in Ghana's Parliament voted to pass the country’s draconian Promotion of Proper Human Sexual Rights and Ghanaian Family Values Bill on February 28th. The bill now heads to Ghana’s President Nana Akufo-Addo to be signed into law. Pr … | Continue reading
Proposition E, which San Franciscans will be asked to vote on in the March 5 election, is so dangerous that last weekend we chartered a plane to inform our neighbors about what the ballot measure does and urge them to vote NO on it. If you were in Dolores Park, Chinatown, or anyw … | Continue reading
This post was written by Jack Beck, an EFF legal intern In a recent letter to the FTC and SEC, Sen. Ron Wyden (OR) details new information on data broker Near, which sold the location data of people seeking reproductive healthcare to anti-abortion groups. Near enabled these group … | Continue reading
Special thanks to legal intern Alissa Johnson, who was the lead author of this post. EFF recently filed an amicus brief in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit urging the court to reverse a lower court decision upholding a State Department rule that forces visa applican … | Continue reading
What if we thought about democracy as a kind of open-source social technology, in which everyone can see the how and why of policy making, and everyone’s concerns and preferences are elicited in a way that respects each person’s community, dignity, and importance? %3Cifram … | Continue reading
EFF learned last week that the state of Nevada is seeking an emergency order prohibiting Meta from rolling out end-to-end encryption in Facebook Messenger for all users in the state under the age of 18. The motion for a temporary restraining order is part of a lawsuit by the stat … | Continue reading
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) urged a federal appeals court to reinstate X’s lawsuit challenging a California law that forces social media companies to file reports to the state about their content moderation decisions, and with respect to five controversial issues in … | Continue reading
In recent years, lots of proposed laws purport to reduce “harmful” content on the internet, especially for kids. Some have good intentions. But the fact is, we can’t censor our way to a healthier internet. When it comes to online (or offline) content, people simply don’t agree ab … | Continue reading
It is troubling to see that the Indian government has issued new demands to X (formerly Twitter) to remove accounts and posts critical of the government and its recent actions. This is especially bears watching as India is preparing for general elections this spring, and concerns … | Continue reading
Following an FBI raid of his home last year, the freelance journalist Tim Burke has been arrested and indicted in connection with an investigation into leaks of unaired footage from Fox News. The raid raised questions about whether Burke was being investigated for First Amendment … | Continue reading
We’ve been challenging the National Security Agency's mass surveillance of ordinary people since we first became aware of it nearly twenty years ago. Now, Section 702 is back up for a major renewal since it was last approved in 2018, and we need to pull out all the stops to make … | Continue reading
Incarceration rates in the United States have long been among the highest in the world, and in response to the systemic flaws and biases unveiled by the renewed scrutiny of the criminal legal system, many advocates have championed new policies aimed at reducing sentences and impr … | Continue reading
Decentralized web technologies have the potential to make the internet more robust and efficient, supporting a new wave of innovation. However, the fundamental technologies and services that make it work are already being hit with overreaching legal threats. Exhibit A: the Interp … | Continue reading
The authors of the dangerous Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) unveiled an amended version this week, but it’s still an unconstitutional censorship bill that continues to empower state officials to target services and online content they do not like. We are asking everyone reading th … | Continue reading
Don’t believe the hype. The undeniable fact is that the FTC has racked up a long list of victories over corporate abuses, like busting a nationwide, decades-long fraud that tricked people into paying for “free” tax preparation. The wheels of justice grind slowly, so many of the a … | Continue reading
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) called on the Ninth Circuit to rule that California’s Age Appropriate Design Code (AADC) violates the First Amendment, while not casting doubt on well-written data privacy laws. EFF filed an amicus brief in the case NetChoice v. Bonta, alo … | Continue reading
Welcome! The fact that you’re reading this means that you probably care deeply about the issue of privacy, which warms our hearts. Unfortunately, even though you care about privacy, or perhaps because you care so much about it, you may feel that there's not much you (or anyone) … | Continue reading
EFF is here to keep you up-to-date with the latest news about your digital rights! EFFector 36.2 is out now and covers a ton of the latest news, including: a victory, as Amazon's Ring will no longer facilitate warrantless footage requests from police; an analysis on Apple's annou … | Continue reading
Cyber mercenaries present a grave threat to human rights and freedom of expression. They have been implicated in surveillance, torture, and even murder of human rights defenders, political candidates, and journalists. One of the most effective ways that the human rights community … | Continue reading
Security researchers’ work discovering and reporting vulnerabilities in software, firmware, networks, and devices protects people, businesses and governments around the world from malware, theft of critical data, and other cyberattacks. The internet and the digital ecosystem ar … | Continue reading
Letter to be submitted by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, accredited under operative paragraph No. 9 of UN General Assembly Resolution 75/282 on behalf of 124 signatories. We, the undersigned, representing a broad spectrum of the global security research community, write to e … | Continue reading
Security researchers’ work discovering and reporting vulnerabilities in software, firmware, networks, and devices protects people, businesses and governments around the world from malware, theft of critical data, and other cyberattacks. The internet and the digital ecosystem ar … | Continue reading
If you live in San Francisco, there is an election on March 5, 2024 during which voters will decide a number of specific local ballot measures—including Proposition E. Proponents of Proposition E have raised over $1 million …but what does the measure actually do? This will break … | Continue reading
A new report reveals that in just three months, from July 1 to September 30, 2023, the San Francisco Police Department (SFPD) racked up 193 hours and 19 minutes of live access to non-city surveillance cameras. That means for the equivalent of 8 days, police sat behind a desk and … | Continue reading
Your grandfather receives a call late at night from a person pretending to be you. The caller says that you are in jail or have been kidnapped and that they need money urgently to get you out of trouble. Perhaps they then bring on a fake police officer or kidnapper to heighten th … | Continue reading
You may have heard recently that Apple is planning to implement Rich Communication Services (RCS) on iPhones, once again igniting the green versus blue bubble debate. RCS will thankfully bring a number of long-missing features to those green bubble conversations in Messages, but … | Continue reading
Civil Liberties Groups Urge Attorney General Bonta to Enforce California's Automated License Plate Reader LawsSAN FRANCISCO—California Attorney General Rob Bonta should crack down on police agencies that still violate Californians’ privacy by sharing automated license plate … | Continue reading
As part of the United Nations (U.N.) Independent Expert on protection against violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity (IE SOGI) report to the U.N. Human Rights Council, EFF and Access Now have submitted information addressing digital rights and … | Continue reading
UN Member States are meeting in New York this week to conclude negotiations over the final text of the UN Cybercrime Treaty, which—despite warnings from hundreds of civil society organizations across the globe, security researchers, media rights defenders, and the world’s largest … | Continue reading
As Copyright Week comes to a close, it’s worth remembering why we have in it January. Twelve years ago, a diverse coalition of internet users, websites, and public interest activists took to the internet to protest SOPA/PIPA, proposed laws that would have, among other things, blo … | Continue reading
Amid reports that the site formerly known as Twitter is dropping in value, hindering how people use the site, and has had controversial removals of accounts. It has never been more precarious to rely on the site, now called X, as a historical record. So, it’s important for indivi … | Continue reading
Do you care about being able to fix and modify your stuff? Then it's time to speak up and tell the Federal Trade Commission that you care about your right to repair. As we have said before, you own what you buy—and you should be able do what you want with it. That should be the e … | Continue reading
San Francisco voters will confront a looming threat to their privacy and civil liberties on the March 5, 2024 ballot. If Proposition E passes, we can expect the San Francisco Police Department (SFPD) will use untested and potentially dangerous technology on the public, any time t … | Continue reading
It’s 1975. Earth, Wind and Fire rule the airwaves, Jaws is on every theater screen, All In the Family is must-see TV, and Bill Gates and Paul Allen are selling software for the first personal computer, the Altair 8800. But for copyright lawyers, and eventually the public, somethi … | Continue reading
Amazon’s Ring has announced that it will no longer facilitate police's warrantless requests for footage from Ring users. This is a victory in a long fight, not just against blanket police surveillance, but also against a culture in which private, for-profit companies build specia … | Continue reading
We're taking part in Copyright Week, a series of actions and discussions supporting key principles that should guide copyright policy. Every day this week, various groups are taking on different elements of copyright law and policy, addressing what's at stake and what we need to … | Continue reading
EFF has joined forces with 110 NGOs today in a joint statement delivered to the United Nations Ad Hoc Committee, clearly outlining civil society non-negotiable redlines for the proposed UN Cybercrime Treaty, and asserting that states should reject the proposed treaty if these ess … | Continue reading
Every January, we celebrate the addition of formerly copyrighted works to the public domain. You’ve likely heard that this year’s crop of public domain newcomers includes Steamboat Willie, the 1928 cartoon that marked Mickey Mouse’s debut. When something enters the public domain, … | Continue reading
Our government shouldn’t be spying on journalists. Nor should law enforcement agencies force journalists to identify their confidential sources or go to prison. To fix this, we need to change the law. Now, we’ve got our best chance in years. The House of Representatives has pass … | Continue reading
We're taking part in Copyright Week, a series of actions and discussions supporting key principles that should guide copyright policy. Every day this week, various groups are taking on different elements of copyright law and policy, addressing what's at stake and what we need to … | Continue reading
New year, but EFF is still here to keep you up to date with the latest digital rights happenings! Be sure to check out our latest newsletter, EFFector 36.1, which covers topics ranging from: our thoughts on AI watermarking, changes in the tech landscape we'd like to see in 2024, … | Continue reading
Creators have reason to be wary of the generative AI future. For one thing, while GenAI can be a valuable tool for creativity, it may also be used to deceive the public and disrupt existing markets for creative labor. Performers, in particular, worry that AI-generated images and … | Continue reading
For years, people have been impersonating police online in order to get companies to hand over incredibly sensitive personal information. Reporting by 404 Media recently revealed that Verizon handed over the address and phone logs of an individual to a stalker pretending to be a … | Continue reading
Since EFF was formed in 1990, we’ve been working hard to protect digital rights for all. And as each year passes, we’ve come to understand the challenges and opportunities a little better, as well as what we’re not willing to accept. Accordingly, here’s what we’d like to see a l … | Continue reading
Phone app location data brokers are a growing menace to our privacy and safety. All you did was click a box while downloading an app. Now the app tracks your every move and sends it to a broker, which then sells your location data to the highest bidder, from advertisers to police … | Continue reading
The Updated and Expanded Hub Sheds New Light on the Digital Surveillance Dragnet that Law Enforcement Deploys Against EveryoneSAN FRANCISCO—The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) today unveiled its new Street Level Surveillance hub, a standalone website featuring expanded and u … | Continue reading