Like most people, we at EFF are horrified by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Also like most people, we are not experts on military strategy or international diplomacy. But we do have some expertise with the internet and civil liberties, which is why we are deeply concerned that governments around the...
Copyright maximalists just don’t know when to stop. Having failed in their 2020 attempt to use U.S. law to force GitHub to permanently cut off access to youtube-dl, an open source tool that allows users to download and preserve videos, on the theory that the tool can also be...
San Francisco Mayor London Breed has pulled a harmful ballot initiative that threatened to gut the city’s landmark 2019 surveillance oversight ordinance. This withdrawal followed intense community pressure, including a coalition letter signed by over 30 San Francisco community and civil rights organizations, including EFF and ...
December 22, 2021H.E. Ms Faouzia Boumaiza MebarkiChairpersonAd Hoc Committee to Elaborate a Comprehensive International Convention on Countering the Use of Information and Communication Technologies for Criminal PurposesYour Excellency,We, the undersigned organizations and academics, work to protect and advance human rights, online and offline. Efforts to address cybercrime are of concern...
Private messages, voicemails, internet browsing, passwords and location data—this is the type of private phone data that is being monitored in real time, unbeknownst to hundreds of thousands of people around the world being tracked by consumer-grade spyware.There is a massive network of stalkerware apps that is harvesting the private...
Anonymous speech is an important protection for those concerned about political or economic retribution, harassment, or even threats to their lives. The shield that protects those speakers’ anonymity in U.S. court is the First Amendment, and applying the appropriate constitutional test during litigation allows a court to appropriately balance the...
Democracies are in many ways like the internet. In both cases, it may take a thousand cuts to demolish their foundation, yet each cut contributes significantly to their erosion. One such cut exists in the Digital Services Act (DSA) in the form of drastic and overbroad government enforcement powers. But...
As the Ghanaian Parliament considers a bill that would criminalize being LGBTQI+ or an ally of LGBTQI+ people, and ban all speech on and offline that even remotely supports LGBTQI+ rights, Twitter and Facebook's parent company Meta must publicly speak out against the proposal and state what action they...
We live in a world increasingly governed by technology. Too often, that technology includes security vulnerabilities that could allow malicious actors access to our most important and private information. That’s why it’s so important that security researchers be allowed to do their work without fear that they might infringe copyright...
In a victory for privacy and security, the Internal Revenue Service reversed course from its recent announcement that it was partnering with ID.me, a third-party identity verification service, to use facial recognition for verification of users managing many aspects of their taxes online. Importantly, this change only...
This week we learned that San Francisco Police used a woman’s own DNA—collected years earlier as part of an investigation into her sexual assault—to charge her for an unrelated property crime. What’s worse—it appears the S.F. police routinely search victims’ DNA in criminal investigations.
It is critically important that lawmakers stand up to protect their constituents from the abuse of biometric information, through strong laws with strong enforcement. That’s why we were proud to testify in support last week of Maryland’s SB 335, which would give Marylanders much-needed protections against unwanted biometric...
As a UN-convened committee of government experts from around the world gets ready to begin negotiations to draft a Cybercrime Treaty, there's a pronounced lack of consensus among UN member states about what constitutes a "cybercrime" and how expansive the treaty will be. After years of discussion, the UN General...
A federal judge has rejected Clearview AI’s First Amendment defense, denied the company’s motion to dismiss, and allowed the lawsuits to move forward. This is an important victory for our privacy over Clearview’s profits.
