- 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…
- 4 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…
- 4 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…
- 4 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…
- 5 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…
- 10 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…
- 10 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…
- 12 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,…
- 12 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…
- 13 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…
- 13 days ago 11 Jan 21, 11:22pm - - The Government Has All of the Powers It Needs to Find and Prosecute Those Responsible for the Crimes on Capitol Hill This Week
Perpetrators of the horrific events that took place at the Capitol on January 6 had a clear goal: to undermine the legitimate operations of government, to disrupt the peaceful transition of power, and to intimidate, hurt, and possibly kill those poli…
- 13 days ago 11 Jan 21, 4:54pm - - YouTube, Facebook and TikTok Put Human Rights In Jeopardy in Turkey
UPDATE: Facebook has joined YouTube and TikTok to appoint a legal entity in Turkey to comply with Turkish draconian social media law. Twitter, Periscope, and Pinterest stayed strong against the requirements of the Law. Now, the Turkish regulator (B…
- 15 days ago 9 Jan 21, 10:25pm - - California City’s Effort to Punish Journalists For Publishing Documents Widely Available Online is Dangerous and Chilling, EFF Brief Argues
As part of their jobs, journalists routinely dig through government websites to find newsworthy documents and share them with the broader public. Journalists and Internet users understand that publicly available information on government websites is…
- 16 days ago 8 Jan 21, 10:49pm - - ACLU, EFF, and Tarver Law Offices Urge Supreme Court to Protect Against Forced Disclosure of Phone Passwords to Law Enforcement
Does the Fifth Amendment Protect You from Revealing Your Passwords to Police?Washington, D.C. - The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), along with New Jersey-based Tarver Law Offices, are urging the U.S…
- 16 days ago 8 Jan 21, 7:41pm - - EFF's Response to Social Media Companies' Decisions to Block President Trump’s Accounts
Like most people in the United States and around the world, EFF is shocked and disgusted by Wednesday’s violent attack on the U.S. Capitol. We support all those who are working to defend the Constitution and the rule of law, and we are grateful for…
- 17 days ago 8 Jan 21, 12:42am - - Police Robots Are Not a Selfie Opportunity, They’re a Privacy Disaster Waiting to Happen

The arrival of government-operated autonomous police robots does not look like predictions in science fiction movies. An army of robots with gun arms is not kicking down your door to arrest you. Instead, a robot snitch that looks like a rolling trash…
- 17 days ago 7 Jan 21, 11:25pm - - Oakland Privacy and the People of Vallejo Prevail in the Fight For Surveillance Accountability
Just as the 2020 holiday season was beginning in earnest, Solano Superior Court Judge Bradley Nelson upheld the gift of surveillance accountability that the California State legislature had provided state residents when they passed 2015's Senate Bill…
- 19 days ago 5 Jan 21, 9:53pm - - COVID-19 and Surveillance Tech: Year in Review 2020
Location tracking apps. Spyware to enforce quarantine. Immunity passports. Throughout 2020, governments around the world deployed invasive surveillance technologies to contain the COVID-19 outbreak.But heavy-handed tactics like these undercut public…
- 19 days ago 5 Jan 21, 9:08pm - - EFF to FinCEN: Stop Pushing For More Financial Surveillance
Today, EFF submitted comments to the Department of the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) opposing the agency’s proposal for new regulations of cryptocurrency transactions. As we explain in our comments, financial records ca…
- 20 days ago 5 Jan 21, 2:16am - - EFF Statement on British Court’s Rejection of Trump Administration’s Extradition Request for Wikileaks’ Julian Assange
Today, a British judge denied the Trump Administration’s extradition request for Wikileaks Editor Julian Assange, who is facing charges in the United States under the Espionage Act and the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. The judge largely confirmed t…
- 20 days ago 4 Jan 21, 4:58pm - - Video Hearing Tuesday: ACLU, EFF Urge Court to Require Warrants for Border Searches of Digital Devices
Appeals Court Should Uphold Fourth Amendment Rights for International TravelersBoston – The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), and the ACLU of Massachusetts will urge an appeals court on Tuesday to requ…
- 20 days ago 4 Jan 21, 3:42pm - - A Smorgasbord of Bad Takedowns: 2020 Year in Review
Here at EFF, we take particular notice of the way that intellectual property law leads to expression being removed from the Internet. We document the worst examples in our Takedown Hall of Shame. Some, we use to explain more complex ideas. And in oth…
- 21 days ago 3 Jan 21, 5:11pm - - Banning Government Use of Face Recognition Technology: 2020 Year in Review
If there was any question about the gravity of problems with police use of face surveillance technology, 2020 wasted no time in proving them dangerously real. Thankfully, from Oregon to Massachusetts, local lawmakers responded by banning their local…
- 21 days ago 3 Jan 21, 5:09pm - - DNS, DoH, and ODoH, Oh My: Year-in-Review 2020
Government knowledge of what sites activists have visited can put them at risk of serious injury, arrest, or even death. This makes it a vitally important priority to secure DNS. DNS over HTTPS (DoH) is a protocol that encrypts the Domain Name System…
- 22 days ago 2 Jan 21, 6:05pm - - Defending Your Rights in Every Reality: Year in Review 2020
Virtual reality and augmented reality technologies (VR/AR) are rapidly maturing and becoming more prevalent to a wider audience, especially as the pandemic drives more people to virtual activities. This technology provides the promise to entertain a…
- 22 days ago 2 Jan 21, 5:47pm - - Questions Remain About Pretrial Risk-Assessment Algorithms: Year in Review 2020
Californians in November voted to repeal a 2018 law that would have ended cash bail and replaced it with a digital pretrial risk assessment tool that dictates whether a person can be released as they await their trial. By voting No on Proposition 25,…
- 23 days ago 1 Jan 21, 7:03pm - - Litigation Against Mass NSA Surveillance: Year in Review 2020
EFF takes on fights for the long run, and some of our longest running legal fights are focused on bringing the National Security Agency within the rule of law, and batting back the arguments that the state secrets privilege should insulate the govern…
- 23 days ago 1 Jan 21, 7:02pm - - Fighting Abusive Patent Litigation During a Year of Health Crisis: 2020 Year In Review
The coronavirus dominated the news cycles, and our personal lives, in 2020. Scientists around the world raced forward to create a vaccine. Alongside that massive effort to create a critical new invention, we saw a renewed debate about patents and the…
- 24 days ago 31 Dec 20, 5:40pm - - Competitive Compatibility: Year in Review 2020
2020 saw governments on three continents take action against the dominance of the biggest tech platforms, with a flurry of pro-competition rules, investigations and lawsuits. As exciting as this is, it's just the beginning. Antitrust enforcement is o…
- 25 days ago 30 Dec 20, 6:28pm - - EFF’s Work in State Legislatures: Year In Review 2020
EFF works in state legislatures across the country to fight for your civil liberties. This year, the pandemic upended the priorities and plans of every statehouse. But, with your support, EFF was able to quickly respond to surveillance threats, defen…
- 25 days ago 30 Dec 20, 6:27pm - - Student Privacy and the Fight to Keep Spying Out of Schools: Year in Review 2020
As students were sent home from school in the spring due to the coronavirus pandemic, schools followed them home with invasive surveillance technology. This trend, spurred by the surge in remote learning, was an opportunistic move by tech companies…
- 26 days ago 29 Dec 20, 5:45pm - - Section 215 Expired: Year in Review 2020
On March 15, 2020, Section 215 of the PATRIOT Act—a surveillance law with a rich history of government overreach and abuse—expired due to its sunset clause. Along with two other PATRIOT Act provisions, Section 215 lapsed after lawmakers failed t…
- 26 days ago 29 Dec 20, 5:41pm - - EFF Members Rise Up: 2020 Year in Review

These days it's easy to feel adrift from the people in your life. At times, physical distance alongside social and political unrest seems like a never-ending rising tide. It can feel overwhelming. We have felt it here at EFF, but thankfully during ou…
- 27 days ago 28 Dec 20, 5:34pm - - In 2020, Congress Threatened Our Speech and Security With the “EARN IT” Act
One nice thing about democracy is that—at least in theory—we don’t need permission to speak freely and privately. We don’t have to prove that our speech meets the government’s criteria, online or offline. We don’t have to “earn” our r…
- 27 days ago 28 Dec 20, 5:25pm - - What Comes Next for the Santa Clara Principles: 2020 in Review
For many years, we have urged platforms to operate with more transparency—both to the public and to their users—and to ensure that the people who use their services have the ability to appeal wrongful content moderation decisions. As such, in con…
- 27 days ago 28 Dec 20, 8:58am - - Surveillance Self-Defense and Security Education: Year in Review 2020
As the world rapidly changed in 2020, new threats arose to our digital security. The shift to online education and the wave of police brutality protests brought new avenues for surveillance, so EFF created new resources to help people protect themsel…
- 28 days ago 27 Dec 20, 5:20pm - - The U.S. Internet Is Being Starved of Its Potential: 2020 in Review

Over a year ago, EFF raised the desperate need for the United States to have a universal fiber infrastructure plan in order to ensure that all Americans can obtain access to 21st century communications technology. Since then, we’ve produced technic…
- 29 days ago 27 Dec 20, 12:01am - - EU and the Digital Services Act: 2020 Year in Review
While 2019 saw the EU ramming through a disastrous Internet copyright rule that continues to reverberate through legal and policy circles, 2020 was a very different story as the EU introduced the Digital Services Act (DSA), the most significant refor…
- 29 days ago 26 Dec 20, 8:58pm - - Snowden: "We Can Fix a Broken System"
Below is a message from whistleblower Edward Snowden. His revelations about secret surveillance programs opened the world’s eyes to a new level of government misconduct, and reinvigorated EFF’s continuing work in the courts and with lawmakers to…
- 29 days ago 26 Dec 20, 5:21pm - - High Tech Police Surveillance of Protests and Activism: Year in Review 2020
This summer’s Black-led protest movement against police violence was one of the largest political movements in the history of the United States--and with it, came a massive proliferation of government surveillance technology aimed at activists and…
- 30 days ago 25 Dec 20, 5:07pm - - How COVID Changed Content Moderation: Year in Review 2020
In a year that saw every facet of online life reshaped the coronavirus pandemic, online content moderation and platform censorship were no exception. After a successful Who Has Your Back? campaign in 2019 to encourage large platforms to adopt best p…
- 31 days ago 24 Dec 20, 6:17pm - - How We Saved .ORG: 2020 in Review

If you come at the nonprofit sector, you’d best not miss.Nonprofits and NGOs around the world were stunned last November when the Internet Society (ISOC) announced that it had agreed to sell the Public Interest Registry—the organization that man…
- 32 days ago 23 Dec 20, 5:55pm - - 2020 in Review
“Now more than ever,” “in these uncertain times,” “unprecedented”—we’re sure you have seen these words repeated over and over in the last twelve months, including from us here at EFF. They are clichés because they are true. 2020 has…
- 32 days ago 23 Dec 20, 5:49pm - - ExamSoft Flags One-Third of California Bar Exam Test Takers for Cheating
One of EFF’s chief concerns about exam proctoring software—in addition to the fact that it subjects students to excessive surveillance—is the risk that it will incorrectly flag students for cheating, called “false positives.” This can be du…
- 33 days ago 23 Dec 20, 4:20am - - The CASE Act Is Just the Beginning of the Next Copyright Battle
As we feared, the “Copyright Alternative in Small-Claims Enforcement Act”—the CASE Act—that we’ve been fighting in various forms for two years has been included in a "must-pass" spending bill. This new legislation means Internet users could…
- 33 days ago 22 Dec 20, 6:10pm - - Year-End Challenge for Online Rights

You weathered a year that pressed the limits of endurance. But thankfully, the more we leaned on technology to stay connected, the harder EFF members fought to protect privacy, security, and free expression. This collective mission is more meaningful…
- 33 days ago 22 Dec 20, 5:40pm - - This Disastrous Copyright Proposal Goes Straight to Our Naughty List
Just yesterday we saw two wretched copyright bills-the CASE Act and a felony streaming bill -- slipped into law via a must-pass spending bill. But it seems some people in Congress were just getting started. Today, Senator Thom Tillis launched a "disc…
- 33 days ago 22 Dec 20, 5:02pm - - EFF to Ninth Circuit: Don’t Grant Immunity to Notorious Spyware Company- 34 days ago 22 Dec 20, 5:56am -