- The SAFE Tech Act Wouldn't Make the Internet Safer for Users
Section 230, a key law protecting free speech online since its passage in 1996, has been the subject of numerous legislative assaults over the past few years. The attacks have come from all sides. One of the latest, the SAFE Tech Act, seeks to addres…
- 3 days ago 26 Feb 21, 12:17am - - Virginia's Weak Privacy Bill Is Just What Big Tech Wants
Virginia’s legislature has passed a bill meant to protect consumer privacy—but the bill, called the Virginia Consumer Data Protection Act, really protects the interests of business far more than the interests of everyday consumers.Take ActionVi…
- 3 days ago 25 Feb 21, 11:31pm - - Interoperability Gains Support at House Hearing on Big Tech Competition
With a new year and a new Congress, the House of Representatives’ subcommittee covering antitrust has turned its attention to “reviving competition.” On Thursday, the first in a series of hearings was held, focusing on how to help small busines…
- 3 days ago 25 Feb 21, 10:26pm - - EFF joins Dozens of Organizations Urging More Government Transparency
EFF has joined 42 other organizations, including the ACLU, the Knight Institute, and the National Security Archive calling for the new Biden administration to fulfill its promise to “bring transparency and truth back to government.” Specificall…
- 3 days ago 25 Feb 21, 6:21pm - - Coded Resistance: Freedom Fighting and Communication

It’s nearing the end of Black History Month, and that history is inherently tied to strife, resistance, and organizing related to government surveillance and oppression. Even though programs like COINTELPRO are more well-known now, the other side o…
- 4 days ago 25 Feb 21, 12:55am - - Student Surveillance Vendor Proctorio Files SLAPP Lawsuit to Silence A Critic
During the pandemic, a dangerous business has prospered: invading students’ privacy with proctoring software and apps. In the last year, we’ve seen universities compel students to download apps that collect their face images, driver’s license d…
- 5 days ago 23 Feb 21, 9:31pm - - How Do Copyright Rules Affect Internet Creators? And What Can They Do About It?
This event has ended. Click here to watch a recording of the event.If you make and share things online, professionally or for fun, you’ve been affected by copyright law. You may use a service that depends on the Digital Millennium Copyright Act…
- 9 days ago 19 Feb 21, 7:10pm - - Cops Using Music to Try to Stop Being Filmed Is Just the Tip of the Iceberg
Someone tries to livestream their encounters with the police, only to find that the police started playing music. In the case of a February 5 meeting between an activist and the Beverly Hills Police Department, the song of choice was Sublime’s “S…
- 9 days ago 19 Feb 21, 6:42pm - - Racial and Immigrant Justice Groups Sue Government for Records of COVID-19 Data Surveillance
Just Futures Law, MediaJustice, Mijente, Immigrant Defense Project and Electronic Frontier Foundation say public must know details of COVID-19 related data collection and sharingSan Francisco - The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is representing…
- 9 days ago 19 Feb 21, 5:57pm - - EFF to First Circuit: Schools Should Not Be Policing Students’ Weekend Snapchat Posts
This blog post was co-written by EFF intern Haley Amster.EFF filed an amicus brief in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit urging the court to hold that under the First Amendment public schools may not punish students for their off-camp…
- 11 days ago 17 Feb 21, 10:36pm - - Speak Up for Real Privacy in Virginia
Last week, we raised the alarm about an empty privacy bill moving fast through the Virginia legislature. The bill, SB 1392, is supported by Microsoft and Amazon, and would set a dangerous standard for state privacy bills. Take ActionVirginia: Spea…
- 12 days ago 16 Feb 21, 10:30pm - - EFF to Patent Office: No New Design Patents
Design is incredibly important to how people use and choose products, but design patents are not. They provide exclusive rights only to ornamental product features, which by definition are not useful or artistic; for those that are, utility patent an…
- 12 days ago 16 Feb 21, 9:49pm - - Turkey’s Free Speech Clampdown Hits Twitter, Clubhouse -- But Most of All, The Turkish People
EFF has been tracking the Turkish government’s crackdown on tech platforms and its continuing efforts to force them to comply with draconian rules on content control and access to users’ data. As of now, the Turkish government has now managed to…
- 12 days ago 16 Feb 21, 3:04pm - - Indonesia’s Proposed Online Intermediary Regulation May be the Most Repressive Yet
Indonesia is the latest government to propose a legal framework to coerce social media platforms, apps, and other online service providers to accept local jurisdiction over their content and users’ data policies and practices. And in many ways, i…
- 12 days ago 16 Feb 21, 3:00pm - - New EFF Report Shows Cops Used Ring Cameras to Monitor Black Lives Matter Protests
LAPD Wanted Unknown Amount of Video for Unknown Reasons – Raising First Amendment ConcernsSan Francisco - The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has obtained emails that show that the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) sent at least one request…
- 13 days ago 16 Feb 21, 11:42am - - LAPD Requested Ring Footage of Black Lives Matter Protests

Along with other civil liberties organizations and activists, EFF has long warned that Amazon Ring and other networked home surveillance devices could be used to monitor political activity and protests. Now we have documented proof that our fears wer…
- 13 days ago 16 Feb 21, 10:57am - - Virginians Deserve Better Than This Empty Privacy Law
A very weak consumer data privacy bill is sailing through the Virginia legislature with backing from Microsoft and Amazon, which have both testified in support of the bill. The bill, SB 1392 and its companion HB 2307, are based on a Washington privac…
- 16 days ago 13 Feb 21, 1:03am - - Victory! EFF Scores Another Win for the Public’s Right of Access against Patent Owner Fighting for Secrecy
Patents generate profits for private companies, but their power comes from the government, and in this country, the government’s power comes from the people. That means the rights patents confer, regardless of who exercises them, are fundamentally…
- 20 days ago 8 Feb 21, 9:09pm - - EFF, Freedom of the Press Foundation and 22 Other Press Freedom Organizations Call on Attorney General to Drop Assange Prosecution
The prosecution of Julian Assange for charges related to his publications of government documents on the whistleblower website Wikileaks poses a grave threat to press freedom, EFF, Freedom of the Press Foundation and other human rights organizations…
- 20 days ago 8 Feb 21, 7:53pm - - Some Answers to Questions About the State of Copyright in 2021
In all the madness that made up the last month of 2020, a number of copyright bills and proposals popped up—some even became law before most people had any chance to review them. So now that the dust has settled a little and we have some better ide…
- 23 days ago 5 Feb 21, 7:46pm - - Online-Only Vaccine Distribution Will Leave Too Many Behind
As the rollout of COVID-19 vaccines has begun across the U.S., there have been numerous reports of people having trouble getting it—not just because of its limited availability, but also because some counties and states have chosen to require compu…
- 23 days ago 5 Feb 21, 6:33pm - - Facebook's Latest Proposed Policy Change Exemplifies the Trouble With Moderating Speech at Scale
Hateful speech presents one of the most difficult problems of content moderation. At a global scale, it’s practically impossible. That’s largely because few people agree about what hateful speech is—whether it is limited to derogations based…
- 24 days ago 4 Feb 21, 9:07pm - - Incoming Biden Administration Officials Should Change Course on Encryption
To have privacy and security in the digital world, encryption is an indispensable ingredient. Without it, we’re all at risk of exploitation—by authoritarian governments, over-reaching police, nosy corporations, and online criminals.But for some…
- 24 days ago 4 Feb 21, 6:41pm - - Section 1201’s Harm to Security Research Shown by Mixed Decision in Corellium Case
Under traditional copyright law, security research is a well-established fair use, meaning it does not infringe copyright. When it was passed in 1998, Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act upset the balance of copyright law. Since then…
- 25 days ago 4 Feb 21, 7:41am - - No Secret Evidence in Our Courts
If you’re accused of a crime, you have a right to examine and challenge the evidence used against you. In an important victory, an appeals court in New Jersey agreed with EFF and the ACLU of NJ that a defendant is entitled to see the source code of…
- 25 days ago 4 Feb 21, 2:31am - - Despite Progress, Metadata Still Under "Second Class" Protection in Latam Legal Safeguards
This post is the fourth in a series about our new State of Communications Privacy Laws report, a set of questions and answers about privacy and data protection in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Paraguay, Panama, Peru, and Spain. The rese…
- 26 days ago 3 Feb 21, 9:23am - - When Law Enforcement Wants Your Private Communications, What Legal Safeguards Are in Place in Latin America and Spain?
This post is the third in a series about our new State of Communications Privacy Laws report, a set of questions and answers about privacy and data protection in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Paraguay, Panama, Peru, and Spain. The resea…
- 26 days ago 3 Feb 21, 3:11am - - San Francisco Takes Small Step to Establish Oversight Over Business Association Surveillance
The San Francisco Board of Supervisors last week voted unanimously in favor of requiring all special business districts—such as the Union Square Business Improvement District (USBID)—to bring any new surveillance plans to the Board before adoptin…
- 26 days ago 2 Feb 21, 11:14pm - - Can Government Officials Block You on Social Media? A New Decision Makes the Law Murkier, But Users Still Have Substantial Rights
This blog post was co-written by EFF Legal Fellow Houston Davidson.It’s now common practice for politicians and other government officials to make major policy announcements on Twitter and other social media forums. That’s continuing to raise i…
- 26 days ago 2 Feb 21, 6:55pm - - Amazon Ring’s End-to-End Encryption: What it Means
Almost one year after EFF called on Amazon’s surveillance doorbell company Ring to encrypt footage end-to-end, it appears they are starting to make this necessary change. This call was a response to a number of problematic and potentially harmful i…
- 26 days ago 2 Feb 21, 6:48pm - - The Old Media and the New Must Work Together to Preserve Free Speech Values
EFF Civil Liberties Director David Greene delivered the following as a keynote address on March 6, 2020, at the Media Law and Policy in the Digital Age: Global Challenges and Opportunities symposium hosted by Indiana University's Center for Internati…
- 30 days ago 29 Jan 21, 7:21pm - - Arizona High Court Misses Opportunity to Uphold Internet Users’ Online Privacy
It’s an uncontroversial position that EFF has long fought for: Internet users expect their private online activities to stay that way. That’s why law enforcement should have to get a search warrant before getting records of people’s Internet ac…
- 30 days ago 29 Jan 21, 6:44pm - - It’s Not 230 You Hate, It’s Oligopolies
As we continue to hear calls to repeal or change Section 230, it appears that many people have conflated a law that affects the tech giants (among many others) with Big Tech as a whole. Section 230 is not a gift to Big Tech, nor is repealing it a pan…
- 32 days ago 27 Jan 21, 8:54pm - - End Two Federal Programs that Fund Police Surveillance Tech
The new administration can do two things immediately that would help stop some of the more nefarious ways that police departments get surveillance technology. It should further roll back the infamous 1033 program of the National Defense Authorization…
- 34 days ago 25 Jan 21, 11:39pm - - For Many, the Arab Spring Isn't Over

Ten years ago today, Egyptians took to the streets to topple a dictator who had clung to power for nearly three decades. January 25th remains one of the most important dates of the Arab Spring, a series of massive, civilian-led protests and uprisings…
- 34 days ago 25 Jan 21, 8:16pm - - Twitter and Interoperability: Some Thoughts From the Peanut Gallery
Late in 2019, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey floated "Project Blue Sky," a plan for an interoperable, federated, standardized Twitter that would let users (or toolsmiths who work on behalf of users) gain more control over their participation in the Twitter…
- 34 days ago 25 Jan 21, 8:04pm - - EFF’s Top Recommendations for the Biden Administration
At noon on January 20, 2021, Joseph R. Biden, Jr. was sworn in as the 46th President of the United States, and he and his staff took over the business of running the country.The tradition of a peaceful transfer of power is as old as the United State…
- 38 days ago 22 Jan 21, 12:16am - - Political Satire Is Protected Speech – Even If You Don’t Get the Joke
This blog post was co-written by EFF Legal Fellow Houston Davidson.Should an obviously fake Facebook post—one made as political satire—end with a lawsuit and a bill to pay for a police response to the post? Of course not, and that’s why EFF fi…
- 39 days ago 20 Jan 21, 11:34pm - - Blyncsy’s Patent On Contact Tracing Isn’t A Medical Breakthrough, It’s A Patent Breakdown
Stupid Patent of the MonthContact tracing is critical for limiting the spread of a contagion like COVID-19, but that doesn’t mean it’s inventive to compare people’s locations using their smartphones. Rather, it’s all the more important to pr…
- 39 days ago 20 Jan 21, 9:21pm - - Oakland’s Progressive Fight to Protect Residents from Government Surveillance
The City of Oakland, California, has once again raised the bar on community control of police surveillance. Last week, Oakland's City Council voted unanimously to strengthen the city's already groundbreaking Surveillance and Community Safety Ordinanc…
- 39 days ago 20 Jan 21, 7:26pm - - Why EFF Doesn’t Support Bans On Private Use of Face Recognition
Government and private use of face recognition technology each present a wealth of concerns. Privacy, safety, and amplification of carceral bias are just some of the reasons why we must ban government use.But what about private use? It also can exa…
- 39 days ago 20 Jan 21, 4:29pm - - New OCC Rule Is a Win in the Fight Against Financial Censorship
On Thursday, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency finalized its Fair Access to Financial Services rule, which will prevent banks from refusing to serve entire classes of customers that they find politically or morally unsavory. The rule is a…
- 40 days ago 20 Jan 21, 2:00am - - So-called “Consent Searches” Harm Our Digital Rights
Imagine this scenario: You’re driving home. Police pull you over, allegedly for a traffic violation. After you provide your license and registration, the officer catches you off guard by asking: “Since you’ve got nothing to hide, you don’t mi…
- 45 days ago 15 Jan 21, 12:56am - - It’s Business As Usual At WhatsApp
WhatsApp users have recently started seeing a new pop-up screen requiring them to agree to its new terms and privacy policy in order to keep using the app. At first users were required to agree by February 8th, but after widespread controversy WhatsA…
- 45 days ago 14 Jan 21, 11:44pm - - EFF Welcomes Fourth Amendment Defender Jumana Musa to Advisory Board
Our Fourth Amendment rights are under attack in the digital age, and EFF is proud to announce that human rights attorney and racial justice activist Jumana Musa has joined our advisory board, bringing great expertise to our fight defending users’ p…
- 47 days ago 12 Jan 21, 9:55pm - - Face Surveillance and the Capitol Attack
After last week’s violent attack on the Capitol, law enforcement is working overtime to identify the perpetrators. This is critical to accountability for the attempted insurrection. Law enforcement has many, many tools at their disposal to do this,…
- 47 days ago 12 Jan 21, 8:11pm - - Beyond Platforms: Private Censorship, Parler, and the Stack
Last week, following riots that saw supporters of President Trump breach and sack parts of the Capitol building, Facebook and Twitter made the decision to give the president the boot. That was notable enough, given that both companies had previously…
- 48 days ago 12 Jan 21, 12:00am - - The FCC and States Must Ban Digital Redlining

The rollout of fiber broadband will never make it to many communities in the US. That’s because large, national ISPs are currently laying fiber primarily focused on high-income users to the detriment of the rest of their users. The absence of regul…
- 48 days ago 11 Jan 21, 11:22pm -