*This interview has been edited for length and clarity. Robert Ssempala is a longtime press freedom and social justice advocate. He serves as Executive Director at Human Rights Network for Journalists-Uganda, a network of journalists in Uganda working towards enhancing the promot … | Continue reading
Is your face truly your own, or is it a commodity to be sold, a weapon to be used against you? A company called Clearview AI has scraped the internet to gather (without consent) 30 billion images to support a tool that lets users identify people by picture alone. Though it’s prim … | Continue reading
Want to hear about the latest news in digital rights? Well, you're in luck! EFFector 36.4 is out now and covers the latest topics, including our stance on the unconstitutional TikTok ban (spoiler: it's bad), a victory helping Indybay resist an unlawful search warrant and gag orde … | Continue reading
This post was written by Rachel Hochhauser, an EFF legal intern We’ve written multiple times about the inaccurate and dangerous “gunshot detection” tool, Shotspotter. A recent near-tragedy in Chicago adds to the growing pile of evidence that cities should drop the product. On Jan … | Continue reading
In keeping with law enforcement’s grand tradition of taking antiquated, invasive, and oppressive technologies, making them digital, and then calling it innovation, police in the U.S. recently combined two existing dystopian technologies in a brand new way to violate civil liberti … | Continue reading
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. EFF has joined 34 civil society organizations … | Continue reading
Global Elections and Platform Responsibility This year is a major one for elections around the world, with pivotal races in the U.S., the UK, the European Union, Russia, and India, to name just a few. Social media platforms play a crucial role in democratic engagement by enabling … | Continue reading
You’re not supposed to be able to litigate in secret in the U.S. That’s especially true in a patent case dealing with technology that most internet users rely on every day. Unfortunately, that’s exactly what’s happening in a case called Entropic Communications, LLC v. Charter Com … | Continue reading
There has been a tremendous amount of hand wringing and nervousness about how so-called artificial intelligence might end up destroying the world. The fretting has only gotten worse as a result of a U.S. State Department-commissioned report on the security risk of weaponized AI. … | Continue reading
The University of Georgia (UGA) School of Law’s First Amendment Clinic has filed an Open Records Request lawsuit to demand public records from the private Atlanta Police Foundation (APF). The lawsuit, filed at the behest of the Atlanta Community Press Collective and Electronic Fr … | Continue reading
*This interview has been edited for length and clarity. Maryam Al-Khawaja is a Bahraini Woman Human Rights Defender who works as a consultant and trainer on Human Rights. She is a leading voice for human rights and political reform in Bahrain and the Gulf region. She has been inf … | Continue reading
The State of California is currently rolling out a “mobile driver’s license” (mDL), a form of digital identification that raises significant privacy and equity concerns. This post explains the new smartphone application, explores the risks, and calls on the state and its vendor t … | Continue reading
EFF legal intern Jack Beck contributed to this post. A California trial court recently departed from wide-ranging precedent and held that Snap, Inc., the maker of Snapchat, the popular social media app, had created a “defective” product by including features like disappearing mes … | Continue reading
In a case being heard Monday at the Supreme Court, 45 Washington lawmakers have argued that government communications with social media sites about possible election interference misinformation are illegal. Agencies can't even pass on information about websites state election off … | Continue reading
Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) is one of the most insidious and secretive mass surveillance authorities still in operation today. The Security and Freedom Enhancement (SAFE) Act would make some much-needed and long fought-for reforms, but it also … | Continue reading
With KOSA passed, the information i can access as a minor will be limited and censored, under the guise of "protecting me", which is the responsibility of my parents, NOT the government. I have learned so much about the world and about myself through social media, and without the … | Continue reading
Why EFF Does Not Think Recent Changes Ameliorate KOSA’s Censorship The latest version of the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) did not change our critical view of the legislation. The changes have led some organizations to drop their opposition to the bill, but we still believe it is … | Continue reading
In a stunning reversal against the popular Transparent & Responsible Use of Surveillance Technology (TRUST) ordinance, the San Diego city council voted earlier this year to cut many of the provisions that sought to ensure public transparency for law enforcement surveillance techn … | Continue reading
With strong bipartisan support, the U.S. House voted 352 to 65 to pass HR 7521 this week, a bill that would ban TikTok nationwide if its Chinese owner doesn’t sell the popular video app. The TikTok bill’s future in the U.S. Senate isn’t yet clear, but President Joe Biden has said … | Continue reading
Our concerns about the selling and misuse of location data for those seeking reproductive and gender healthcare are escalating amid a recent wave of cases and incidents demonstrating that the digital trail we leave is being used by anti-abortion activists. The good news is some s … | Continue reading
Cars collect a lot of our personal data, and car companies disclose a lot of that data to third parties. It’s often unclear what’s being collected, and what's being shared and with whom. A recent New York Times article highlighted how data is shared by G.M. with insurance compani … | Continue reading
EFF Legal Intern Alissa Johnson contributed to the writing of this blog post. Earlier this month, the European Union Court of Justice ruled that harmonized standards are a part of EU law, and thus must be accessible to EU citizens and residents free of charge. While it might seem … | Continue reading
What do House Democrats like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Barbara Lee have in common with House Republicans like Thomas Massie and Andy Biggs? Not a lot. But they do know an unconstitutional bill when they see one. These and others on both sides of the aisle were among the 65 Hou … | Continue reading
Special thanks to EFF legal intern Jack Beck, who was the lead author of this post. Amid heavy criticism for its ties to weapons manufacturers supplying Israel, South by Southwest—the organizer of an annual conference and music festival in Austin—has been on the defensive. One to … | Continue reading
Welcome to your U.S. presidential election year, when all kinds of bad actors will flood the internet with election-related disinformation and misinformation aimed at swaying or suppressing your vote in November. So… what’re you going to do about it? As EFF’s Corynne McSherry w … | Continue reading
Congress’ unfounded plan to ban TikTok under the guise of protecting our data is back, this time in the form of a new bill—the “Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act,” H.R. 7521 — which has gained a dangerous amount of momentum in Congress. This … | Continue reading
The U.S. Senate is moving forward with two bills that would enrich patent trolls, patent system insiders, and a few large companies that rely on flimsy patents, at the expense of everyone else. One bill, the Patent Eligibility Restoration Act (PERA) would bring back some of the … | Continue reading
Nevada Makes Backward Argument That Insecure Communication Makes Children SaferLAS VEGAS — The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and a coalition of partners urged a court to protect default encrypted messaging and children’s privacy and security in a brief filed today. The bri … | Continue reading
The First Amendment requires courts to apply a robust balancing test before unmasking anonymous online speakers, EFF explained in an amicus brief it filed recently in a New York State appeal. In the case on appeal, GSB Gold Standard v. Google, a German company that sells cryptocu … | Continue reading
We’ve been saying it for 20 years, and it remains true now more than ever: the internet is an essential service. It enables people to build and create communities, shed light on injustices, and acquire vital knowledge that might not otherwise be available. And access to it become … | Continue reading
Imagine a world in which the internet is first and foremost about empowering people, not big corporations and government. In that world, government does “after-action” analyses to make sure its tech regulations are working as intended, recruits experienced technologists as adviso … | Continue reading
Copyright’s reach is already far too broad, and courts have no business expanding it any further, particularly where that reframing will undermine adversarial interoperability. Unfortunately, a federal district court did just that in the latest iteration of Oracle v. Rimini, conc … | Continue reading
More than four years after it was first introduced, the Online Safety Act (OSA) was passed by the U.K. Parliament in September 2023. The Act seeks to make the U.K. “the safest place” in the world to be online and provides Ofcom, the country’s communications regulator, with the po … | Continue reading
For Sunshine Week, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and MuckRock compile the year's worst and most ridiculous responses to public records requests and other attempts to thwart public access to information, including through increasing attempts to gut the laws guaranteeing this … | Continue reading
Around the globe, freedom of expression varies wildly in definition, scope, and level of access. The impact of the digital age on perceptions and censorship of speech has been felt across the political spectrum on a worldwide scale. In the debate over what counts as free expressi … | Continue reading
This International Women’s Day, defend free speech, fight surveillance, and support innovation by calling on our elected politicians and private companies to uphold our most fundamental rights—both online and offline. 1. Pass the “My Body, My Data” Act Privacy fears should never … | Continue reading
While online violence is alarmingly common globally, women are often more likely to be the target of mass online attacks, nonconsensual leaks of sensitive information and content, and other forms of online violence. This International Women’s Day, visit EFF’s Surveillance Self-D … | Continue reading
Today is International Women’s Day, a day celebrating the achievements of women globally but also a day marking a call to action for accelerating equality and improving the lives of women the world over. The internet is a vital tool for women everywhere—provided they have access … | Continue reading
Running the Atlas of Surveillance, our project to map and inventory police surveillance across the United States, means experiencing emotional extremes. Whenever we announce that we've added new data points to the Atlas, it comes with a great sense of satisfaction. That's because … | Continue reading
Join us in San Francisco on May 9th for EFF's 8th annual Tech Trivia Night! Explore the obscure minutiae of digital security, online rights, and internet culture. Enjoy delicious tacos, churros, and complimentary adult beverages and soft drinks as you and your team battle through … | Continue reading
Over the past month, the independent news outlet Indybay has quietly fought off an unlawful search warrant and gag order served by the San Francisco Police Department. Today, a court lifted the gag order and confirmed the warrant is void. The police also promised the court to not … | Continue reading
Can free and open source software projects like Caddy and Traefik eventually replace EFF’s Certbot? Although Certbot continues to be developed, we think tools like these help offer a promising path forward in the further development of a secure and encrypted web. For some users, … | Continue reading
Monopolists want us to believe that their power over our lives is inevitable and unchangeable, just as the surveillance industry banks on convincing you that the fight for privacy was and always will be a lost cause. But we once had a better internet, and we can get a better inte … | Continue reading
In a milestone judgment - Podchasov v. Russia - the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has ruled that weakening of encryption can lead to general and indiscriminate surveillance of the communications of all users and violates the human right to privacy. In 2017, the landsca … | Continue reading
San Francisco’s ballot initiative Proposition E is a dangerous and deceptive measure that threatens our privacy, safety, and democratic ideals. It would give the police more power to surveil, chase, and harm. It would allow the police to secretly acquire and use unproven surveill … | Continue reading
On March 3rd, 2009, we launched Surveillance Self-Defense (SSD). At the time, we pitched it as, "an online how-to guide for protecting your private data against government spying." In the last decade hundreds of people have contributed to SSD, over 20 million people have read it, … | Continue reading
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