Young People May Be The Biggest Target for Online Censorship and Surveillance—and the Strongest Weapon Against Them
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/10/young-people-may-be-biggest-target-online-censorship-and-surveillance-and
October 30, 2023, 7:54 PM
Over the last year, state and federal legislatures have tried to pass—and in some cases succeeded in passing—legislation that bars young people from digital spaces, censors what they are allowed to see and share online, and monitors and controls when and how they can do it. 
EFF and many other digital rights and civil liberties organizations have fought back against these bills, but the sheer number is alarming. At times it can be nearly overwhelming: there are bills in Texas, Utah, Arkansa...
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How GoGuardian Invades Student Privacy
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/10/how-goguardian-invades-student-privacy
October 30, 2023, 7:54 PM
This post was co-authored by legal intern Kate Prince.Jump to our detailed report about GoGuardian and student monitoring tools.
GoGuardian is a student monitoring tool that watches over twenty-seven million students across ten thousand schools, but what it does exactly, and how well it works, isn’t easy for students to know. To learn more about its functionality, accuracy, and impact on students, we filed dozens of public records requests and analyzed tens of thousands of results from the s...
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Passkeys and Privacy
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/10/passkeys-and-privacy
October 26, 2023, 8:48 PM
This is part 2 of our series on passkeys. See part 1 here.
In our previous article we described what a passkey is: a few hundred bytes of data stored in your password manager, security key, or elsewhere, which allows you to log in to a specific website without a password. The good news is that passkeys are quite well designed from a privacy point of view, even though they give a little more information to websites than a plain old password.
Cross-site Tracking
One of the most important attribute...
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What the !#@% is a Passkey?
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/10/what-passkey
October 26, 2023, 8:03 PM
This is part 1 of our series on passkeys. Part 2, on privacy, is here.
A new login technique is becoming available in 2023: the passkey. The passkey promises to solve phishing and prevent password reuse. But lots of smart and security-oriented folks are confused about what exactly a passkey is. There’s a good reason for that. A passkey is in some sense one of two (or three) different things, depending on how it’s stored.
First off: is a passkey one of those little plastic things you stick in...
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Celebrating the Internet Freedom Movement at the EFF Awards
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/09/celebrating-internet-freedom-movement-eff-awards
October 26, 2023, 6:10 PM
“It would be easy to see the world as all doom and gloom when you're tackling these issues… But we do this work because we CAN fix the internet. Our dream is that everyone in this room will not only stand up for their rights but find ten other friends to stand up with you.” - EFF’s Executive Director, Cindy Cohn.
The reason EFF hosts our annual celebration, now known as the EFF Awards, is to celebrate those in the digital rights community who are pushing for privacy and innovation online...
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Access to Law Should Be Fully Open: Tell Congress Not to Be Fooled by the Pro Codes Act
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/10/access-law-should-be-fully-open-tell-congress-not-be-fooled-pro-codes-act
October 25, 2023, 5:07 PM
It’s Open Access Week in the United States, which means it’s a chance to celebrate the accomplishments of the Open Access movement—and reinforce the need to keep fighting. We’ve come a long way, with governments, universities, and research funders all successfully pressuring publishers to improve access to knowledge and finding ways to do it themselves. 
TAKE ACTION
Tell Congress: Access To Laws Should Be Fully Open
At EFF, we are especially proud of the work we have done helping our cl...
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What’s the Goal and How Do We Get There? Crucial Issues in Brazil’s Take on Saving the News from Big Tech
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/10/whats-goal-and-how-do-we-get-there-crucial-issues-brazils-take-saving-news-big
October 24, 2023, 2:57 PM
Amidst the global wave of countries looking at Big Tech revenues and how they relate to the growing news media crisis, many are asking whether and how tech companies should  compensate publishers for the journalism that circulates on their platforms. This has become another flash point in Brazil’s heated agenda regarding platform regulation.
Draft proposals setting a “remuneration obligation” for digital platforms started to pop up in the Brazilian congress after Australia adopted its ow...
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Internet Access Shouldn't Be a Bargaining Chip In Geopolitical Battles
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/10/internet-access-shouldnt-be-bargaining-chip-geopolitical-battles
October 20, 2023, 11:16 PM
We at EFF are horrified by the events transpiring in the Middle East: Hamas’ deadly attack on southern Israel last weekend and Israel’s ongoing retributive military attack and siege on Gaza. While we are not experts in military strategy or international diplomacy, we do have expertise with how human rights and civil liberties should be protected on the internet—even in times of conflict and war. 
That is why we are deeply concerned that a key part of Israel’s response has been to target...
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What to Do If You're Concerned About the 23andMe Breach
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/10/what-do-if-youre-concerned-about-23andme-breach
October 20, 2023, 4:53 PM
In early October, a bad actor claimed they were selling account details from the genetic testing service, 23andMe, which included alleged data of one million users of Ashkenazi Jewish descent and another 100,000 users of Chinese descent. By mid-October this expanded out to another four million more general accounts. The data includes display name, birth year, sex, and some details about genetic ancestry results, but no genetic data. There's nothing you can do if your data was already accessed, b...
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Privacy Advocates to TSA: Slow Down Plans for mDLs
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/10/privacy-advocates-tsa-slow-down-plans-mdls
October 18, 2023, 9:08 PM
A digital form of identification should have the same privacy and security protections as physical ones. More so, because the standards governing them are so new and untested. This is at the heart of comments EFF and others submitted recently. Why now? Well, in 2021 the DHS submitted a call for comments for mobile driver’s licenses (mDLs). Since then the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has taken up a process of making mDLs an acceptable identification at airports, and more states ...
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Adtech Surveillance and Government Surveillance are Often the Same Surveillance
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/10/adtech-surveillance-and-government-surveillance-are-often-same-surveillance
October 18, 2023, 4:44 PM
In the absence of comprehensive federal privacy legislation in the United States, the targeted advertising industry, fueled by personal information harvested from our cell phone applications, has run roughshod over our privacy. Worse, the boundaries between corporate surveillance and government surveillance are eroding. Unless your data is fully encrypted or stored locally by you, the government often can get it from a communications or computing company.
Traditionally, that required a court or...
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Social Media Platforms Must Do Better When Handling Misinformation, Especially During Moments of Conflict
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/10/social-media-platforms-must-do-better-when-handling-misinformation-especially
October 17, 2023, 9:49 PM
In moments of political tension and social conflict, people have turned to social media to share information, speak truth to power, and report uncensored information from their communities. Just over a decade ago, social media was celebrated widely as a booster—if not a catalyst—for the democratic uprisings that swept the Middle East, North Africa, Spain, and elsewhere. That narrative was always more complex than popular media made it out to be, and these platforms always had a problem sifti...
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Colorado Supreme Court Upholds Keyword Search Warrant
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/10/colorado-supreme-court-upholds-keyword-search-warrant
October 16, 2023, 9:42 PM
Today, the Colorado Supreme Court became the first state supreme court in the country to address the constitutionality of a keyword warrant—a digital dragnet tool that allows law enforcement to identify everyone who searched the internet for a specific term or phrase. In a weak and ultimately confusing opinion, the court upheld the warrant, finding the police relied on it in good faith. EFF filed two amicus briefs and was heavily involved in the case.
The case is People v. Seymour, which invol...
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Digital Rights Updates with EFFector 35.13
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/10/digital-rights-updates-effector-3513
October 16, 2023, 6:22 PM
It's spooky season 🎃 But don't let the latest digital rights news scare you—we've got a breakdown of the latest headlines with our EFFector newsletter. This latest issue covers the government spying law Section 702 and why it must end; our fight against the Kids Online Safety Act, and other bills aimed at "protecting the children" through censorship; and a couple of recent digital rights victories in California.
Learn more about all of the latest news by reading the full newsletter here, or...
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CCTV Cambridge: Nurturing Community with Tools for Speech and Civic Engagement
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/10/cctv-cambridge-nurturing-community-tools-speech-and-civic-engagement
October 16, 2023, 6:13 PM
Recently I got the chance to speak with longtime Electronic Frontier Alliance member Cambridge Community Television (CCTV). Their membership is growing, they’ve got a new Associate Director of Community Relations, Maritza Grooms, and exciting projects are coming down the pike! Maritza took some time to share with EFF how things are looking for CCTV, their upcoming advocacy work, and how people from across the country, not just Massachusetts, can plug-in and support.
Can you share how CCTV Camb...
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EFF and 45 Organizations Tell UN: Reverse Decision to Host IGF in Saudi Arabia
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/10/eff-and-45-organizations-tell-un-reverse-decision-host-igf-saudi-arabia
October 16, 2023, 4:59 PM
EFF joins 45 digital and human rights organizations in calling on the UN Secretary-General and other decision-makers to reverse their recent decision to grant Saudi Arabia host status for the 2024 Internet Governance Forum (IGF), and to conduct a review of the process that led to it. 
Civil society organizations attending the 2023 IGF in Kyoto, Japan this past week were shocked to learn that Saudi Arabia had been chosen to serve as the next host. The Gulf country has a long history of human rig...
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The FCC is Expected to Propose the Return of Net Neutrality Protections Oct 19th - Let’s Hope They Get it Right!
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/10/fcc-expected-propose-return-net-neutrality-protections-oct-19th-lets-hope-they-get
October 13, 2023, 6:50 PM
Network neutrality is the idea that internet service providers (ISPs) should treat all data that travels over their networks fairly, without discrimination in favor of particular apps, sites or services. It is a principle that must be upheld to protect the open internet. The idea that ISPs could prevent access to certain sites, slow down rates and speeds for certain users, isn’t just horrendous— it’s vastly unpopular. When ISPs charge tolls or put up road-blocks, it comes at the expense of...
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Is Landmark Technology’s Two-Decade Patent Assault On E-Commerce Finally Over? 
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/10/landmark-technologys-two-decade-patent-assault-e-commerce-finally-over
October 13, 2023, 4:59 PM
Landmark Technology’s U.S. Patent No. 7,010,508, and its predecessor, are very likely two of the most-abused patents in U.S. history. These patents, under two different owners, have been used to threaten thousands of small businesses since 2001. 
In just one 18-month period, the ‘508 patent was the subject of more than 1,800 patent demand letters sent to more than 1,100 different businesses. All of these businesses were told to pay up—typically $65,000—for using basic e-commerce technol...
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California Takes Some Big Steps for Digital Rights
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/10/california-takes-some-big-steps-digital-rights
October 13, 2023, 3:37 PM
California often sets the bar for technology legislation across the country. This year, the state enacted several laws that strengthen consumer digital rights.
The first big win to celebrate? Californians now enjoy the right to repair. S.B. 244, authored by California Sen. Susan Eggman, makes it easier for individuals and independent repair shops to access materials and parts needed for maintenance on electronics and appliances. That means that Californians with a broken phone screen or a busted...
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Mastercard Should Stop Selling Our Data
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/10/mastercard-should-stop-selling-our-data
October 10, 2023, 6:59 PM
We trust companies with our information every day. But many companies—even those that hold our most revealing information—are using it not just to provide the services we ask for, but to amp up their profits at the cost of our privacy.
That's why EFF has joined a campaign, led by the U.S. Public Interest Research Group (U.S. PIRG), to call on Mastercard to limit its data collection and stop selling cardholder information.
Mastercard is just one company that profits from the sale of personal ...
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EFF Urges Second Circuit to Affirm Injunction of New York’s Dangerous Online “Hateful Conduct” Law
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/10/eff-urges-second-circuit-affirm-injunction-new-yorks-dangerous-online-hateful
October 5, 2023, 11:40 PM
EFF, along with the ACLU, urged the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit to find a New York statute that compels platforms to moderate online speech that falls within the state’s particular definition of “hateful conduct” unconstitutional.
The statute itself requires covered social media platforms to develop a mechanism that allows users to report incidents of “hateful conduct” (as defined by the state), and to publish a policy detailing how the platform will address such incid...
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See What We Accomplished Together in EFF's 2022 Annual Report
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/10/see-what-we-accomplished-together-effs-2022-annual-report
October 4, 2023, 4:57 PM
It's here! EFF's 2022 Annual Report is live and highlights our work powered by digital freedom supporters around the world.
2022 was a big year: we had 17 legal and legislative victories, and an average of 78 press mentions per day globally. EFF spoke with the power of 34,500 members worldwide on issues at the local, state, federal, and international levels.
We conducted original investigations and shared critical digital privacy information with the public. For example, EFF exposed Fog Data Sci...
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Is Your State’s Child Safety Law Unconstitutional? Try Comprehensive Data Privacy Instead
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/10/your-states-child-safety-law-unconstitutional-try-comprehensive-data-privacy
October 3, 2023, 7:47 PM
Comprehensive data privacy legislation is the best way to hold tech companies accountable in our surveillance age, including for harm they do to children. Well-written privacy legislation has the added benefit of being constitutional—unlike the flurry of laws that restrict content behind age verification requirements that courts have recently blocked. Such misguided laws do little to protect kids while doing much to invade everyone’s privacy and speech.
Courts have issued preliminary injunct...
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EFF And Other Experts Join in Pointing Out Pitfalls of Proposed EU Cyber-Resilience Act
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/10/eff-and-other-experts-join-pointing-out-pitfalls-proposed-eu-cyber-resilience-act
October 3, 2023, 6:41 PM
Today we join a set of 56 experts from organizations such as Google, Panasonic, Citizen Lab, Trend Micro and many others in an open letter calling on the European Commission, European Parliament, and Spain’s Ministry of Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation to reconsider the obligatory vulnerability reporting mechanisms built into Article 11 of the EU’s proposed Cyber-Resilience Act (CRA). As we’ve pointed out before, this reporting obligation raises major cybersecurity concerns. Bro...
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The State of Chihuahua Is Building a 20-Story Tower in Ciudad Juarez to Surveil 13 Cities–and Texas Will Also Be Watching
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/09/state-chihuahua-building-20-story-tower-ciudad-juarez-surveil-13-cities-and-state
October 3, 2023, 5:10 PM
EFF Special Advisor Paul Tepper and EFF intern Michael Rubio contributed research to this report.
Chihuahua state officials and a notorious Mexican security contractor broke ground last summer on the Torre Centinela (Sentinel Tower), an ominous, 20-story high-rise in downtown Ciudad Juarez that will serve as the central node of a new AI-enhanced surveillance regime. With tentacles reaching into 13 Mexican cities and a data pipeline that will channel intelligence all the way to Austin, Texas, th...
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GAO Report Shows the Government Uses Face Recognition with No Accountability, Transparency, or Training
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/10/gao-report-shows-government-uses-face-recognition-no-accountability-transparency
October 3, 2023, 4:52 PM
Federal agents are using face recognition software without training, policies, or oversight, according to the Government Accountability Office (GAO).
The government watchdog issued yet another report this month about the dangerously inadequate and nonexistent rules for how federal agencies use face recognition, underlining what we’ve already known: the government cannot be trusted with this flawed and dangerous technology.
The GAO review covered seven agencies within the Department of Homelan...
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Cities Should Act NOW to Ban Predictive Policing...and Stop Using ShotSpotter, Too
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/10/cities-should-act-now-ban-predictive-policingand-stop-using-shotspotter-too
October 2, 2023, 6:27 PM
Sound Thinking, the company behind ShotSpotter—an acoustic gunshot detection technology that is rife with problems—is reportedly buying Geolitica, the company behind PredPol, a predictive policing technology known to exacerbate inequalities by directing police to already massively surveilled communities. Sound Thinking acquired the other major predictive policing technology—Hunchlab—in 2018. This consolidation of harmful and flawed technologies means it’s even more critical for cities ...
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The Growing Threat of Cybercrime Law Abuse: LGBTQ+ Rights in MENA and the UN Cybercrime Draft Convention
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/09/growing-threat-cybercrime-law-abuse-lgbtq-rights-mena-and-un-cybercrime-draft
September 30, 2023, 5:36 AM
This is Part II  of a series examining the proposed UN Cybercrime Treaty in the context of LGBTQ+ communities. Part I looks at the draft Convention’s potential implications for LGBTQ+ rights. Part II provides a closer look at how cybercrime laws might specifically impact the LGBTQ+ community and activists in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region.In the digital age, the rights of the LGBTQ+ community in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) are gravely threatened by expansive cyberc...
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Watch EFF's Talks from DEF CON 31
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/09/catch-effs-talks-def-con-31
September 28, 2023, 11:16 PM
EFF had a blast at DEF CON 31! Thank you to everyone who came and supported EFF at the membership booth, participated in our contests, and checked out our various talks. We had a lot of things going on this year, and it was great to see so many new and familiar faces.
This year was our biggest DEF CON yet, with over 900 attendees starting or renewing an EFF membership at the conference. Thank you! Your support is the reason EFF can push for initiatives like protecting encrypted messaging, fighti...
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Get Real, Congress: Censoring Search Results or Recommendations Is Still Censorship
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/09/get-real-congress-censoring-search-results-or-recommendations-still-censorship
September 28, 2023, 10:29 PM
Updated October 20, 2023: Removed two sentences for clarity. Are you a young person fighting back against bad bills like KOSA? Become an EFF member at a new, discounted Neon membership level specifically for you--stickers included! 
For the past two years, Congress has been trying to revise the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) to address criticisms from EFF, human and digital rights organizations, LGBTQ groups, and others, that the core provisions of the bill will censor the internet for every...
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The Federal Government’s Privacy Watchdog Concedes: 702 Must Change
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/09/federal-governments-privacy-watchdog-concedes-702-must-change
September 28, 2023, 9:41 PM
The Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB) has released its much-anticipated report on Section 702, a legal authority that allows the government to collect a massive amount of digital communications around the world and in the U.S. The PCLOB agreed with EFF and organizations across the political spectrum that the program requires significant reforms if it is to be renewed before its December 31, 2023 expiration. Of course, EFF believes that Congress should go further–including let...
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EFF to D.C. Circuit: Animal Rights Activists Shouldn’t Be Censored on Government Social Media Pages Because Agency Disagrees With Their Viewpoint
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/09/eff-dc-circuit-animal-rights-activists-shouldnt-be-censored-government-social
September 28, 2023, 8:16 PM
Intern Muhammad Essa contributed to this post.
EFF, along with the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), filed a brief in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit urging the court to reverse a lower court ruling that upheld the censorship of public comments on a government agency’s social media pages. The district court’s decision is problematic because it undermines our right to freely express opinions on issues of public importance using a modern and accessible way ...
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How To Turn Off Google’s “Privacy Sandbox” Ad Tracking—and Why You Should
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/09/how-turn-googles-privacy-sandbox-ad-tracking-and-why-you-should
September 28, 2023, 5:42 PM
Google has rolled out "Privacy Sandbox," a Chrome feature first announced back in 2019 that, among other things, exchanges third-party cookies—the most common form of tracking technology—for what the company is now calling "Topics." Topics is a response to pushback against Google’s proposed Federated Learning of Cohorts (FLoC), which we called "a terrible idea" because it gave Google even more control over advertising in its browser while not truly protecting user privacy. While there have...
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EFF's Comment to the Meta Oversight Board on Polish Anti-Trans Facebook Post 
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/09/effs-comment-meta-oversight-board-polish-anti-trans-facebook-post
September 27, 2023, 3:33 PM
EFF recently submitted comments in response to the Meta Oversight Board’s request for input on a Facebook post in Polish from April 2023 that targeted trans people. The Oversight Board was created by Meta in 2020 as an appellate body and has 22 members from around the world who review contested content moderation decisions made by the platform.  
Our comments address how Facebook’s automated systems failed to prioritize content for human review. From our observations—and the research of ...
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EFF, ACLU and 59 Other Organizations Demand Congress Protect Digital Privacy and Free Speech
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/09/eff-aclu-and-59-other-organizations-demand-congress-protect-digital-privacy-and
September 26, 2023, 8:50 PM
Earlier this week, EFF joined the ACLU and 59 partner organizations to send a letter to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer urging the Senate to reject the STOP CSAM Act. This bill threatens encrypted communications and free speech online, and would actively harm LGBTQ+ people, people seeking reproductive care, and many others. EFF has consistently opposed this legislation. This bill has unacceptable consequences for free speech, privacy, and security that will affect how we connect, communicat...
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EFF at FIFAfrica 2023
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/09/eff-fifafrica-2023
September 25, 2023, 7:42 PM
EFF is excited to be in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania for this year's iteration of the Forum on Internet Freedom in Africa (FIFAfrica), organized by CIPESA (Collaboration on International ICT Policy for East and Southern Africa) between 27-29 September 2023.
FIFAfrica is a landmark event in the region that convenes an array of stakeholders from across internet governance and online rights to discuss and collaborate on opportunities for advancing privacy, protecting free expression, and enhancing the f...
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Digital Rights Updates with EFFector 35.12
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/09/digital-rights-updates-effector-3512
September 25, 2023, 6:25 PM
With so much happening in the digital rights movement, it can be difficult to keep up. But EFF has you covered with our EFFector newsletter, containing a collection of the latest headlines! The latest issue is out now and covers a new update to our Privacy Badger browser extension, the fight to require law enforcement gather a warrant before using a drone to spy on a home, and EFF's victory helping free the law with public resource.
Learn more about all of the latest news by reading the full new...
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The U.S. Government’s Database of Immigrant DNA Has Hit Scary, Astronomical Proportions
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/09/us-governments-database-immigrant-dna-has-hit-scary-astronomical-proportions
September 25, 2023, 4:27 PM
The FBI recently released its proposed budget for 2024, and its request for a massive increase in funding for its DNA database should concern us all. The FBI is asking for an additional $53 million in funding to aid in the collection, organization, and maintenance of its Combined DNA Index System (CODIS) database in the wake of a 2020 Trump Administration rule that requires the Department of Homeland Security to collect DNA from anyone in immigration detention. The database approximately houses ...
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Don’t Fall for the Intelligence Community’s Monster of the Week Justifications
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/09/dont-fall-intelligence-communitys-monster-week-justifications
September 22, 2023, 9:37 PM
In the beloved episodic television shows of yesteryear, the antagonists were often “monsters of the week”: villains who would show up for one episode and get vanquished by the heroes just in time for them to fight the new monster in the following episode. Keeping up with the Intelligence Community and law enforcement’s justifications for invasive, secretive, and uncontrollable surveillance powers and authorities is a bit like watching  one of these shows. This week, they could say they ne...
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This Bill Would Revive The Worst Patents On Software—And Human Genes  
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/09/bill-would-boost-worst-patents-software-and-human-genes
September 21, 2023, 5:34 PM
The majority of high-tech patent lawsuits are brought by patent trolls—companies that exist not to provide products or services, but primarily have a business using patents to threaten others’ work. 
Some politicians are proposing to make that bad situation worse. Rather than taking the problem of patent trolling seriously, they want to encourage more bad patents, and make life easier—and more profitable—for the worst patent abusers. 
Take Action
Congress Must Not Bring Back The Worst ...
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Today The UK Parliament Undermined The Privacy, Security, And Freedom Of All Internet Users 
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/09/today-uk-parliament-undermined-privacy-security-and-freedom-all-internet-users
September 19, 2023, 7:50 PM
The U.K. Parliament has passed the Online Safety Bill (OSB), which says it will make the U.K. “the safest place” in the world to be online. In reality, the OSB will lead to a much more censored, locked-down internet for British users. The bill could empower the government to undermine not just the privacy and security of U.K. residents, but internet users worldwide. 
A Backdoor That Undermines Encryption
A clause of the bill allows Ofcom, the British telecom regulator, to serve a notice req...
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We Want YOU (U.S. Federal Employees) to Stand for Digital Freedoms
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/09/we-want-you-us-federal-employees-stand-digital-freedoms
September 19, 2023, 7:02 PM
It's that time of the year again! U.S. federal employees and retirees can support the digital freedom movement through the Combined Federal Campaign (CFC).
The Combined Federal Campaign is the world's largest and most successful annual charity campaign for U.S. federal employees and retirees. Last year, 175 members of the CFC community raised over $34,000 for EFF's lawyers, activists, and technologists fighting for digital freedoms online. But, in a year with many threats popping up to our right...
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New Privacy Badger Prevents Google From Mangling More of Your Links and Invading Your Privacy
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/09/new-privacy-badger-prevents-google-mangling-more-your-links-and-invading-your
September 19, 2023, 1:35 PM
We released a new version of Privacy Badger 1 that updates how we fight “link tracking” across a number of Google products. With this update Privacy Badger removes tracking from links in Google Docs, Gmail, Google Maps, and Google Images results. Privacy Badger now also removes tracking from links added after scrolling through Google Search results.
Link tracking is a creepy surveillance tactic that allows a company to follow you whenever you click on a link to leave its website. As we wr...
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UN Cybercrime Treaty Talks End Without Consensus on Scope And Deep Divides About Surveillance Powers
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/09/un-cybercrime-treaty-talks-end-without-consensus-scope-and-deep-divides-about
September 13, 2023, 11:02 PM
As the latest negotiating session on the proposed UN Cybercrime Treaty wrapped up in New York earlier this month, one thing was clear: with time running out to finalize the text, little progress and consensus was reached on crucial points, such as the treaty's overall scope of application and the reach of its criminal procedure mandates and international cooperation measures.Instead, a plethora of proposed word changes was added, further complicated by additional amendments published in informal...
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EFF to Michigan Court: Governments Shouldn’t Be Allowed to Use a Drone to Spy on You Without a Warrant
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/09/eff-michigan-court-governments-shouldnt-be-allowed-use-drone-spy-you-without
September 13, 2023, 9:59 PM
Should the government have to get a warrant before using a drone to spy on your home and backyard? We think so, and in an amicus brief filed last Friday in Long Lake Township v. Maxon, we urged the Michigan Supreme Court to find that warrantless drone surveillance of a home violates the Fourth Amendment. 
In this case, Long Lake Township hired private operators to repeatedly fly drones over Todd and Heather Maxon's home to take aerial photos and videos of their property in a zoning investigatio...
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UN's Cybercrime Convention Draft: A Slippery Slope for LGBTQ+ and Gender Rights
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/09/uns-cybercrime-convention-draft-slippery-slope-lgbtq-and-gender-rights
September 13, 2023, 8:18 PM
This post is divided into two parts. Part I looks at the draft UN's Cybercrime Convention and its potential implications for LGBTQ+ rights. Part II provides a closer look at how cybercrime laws might specifically impact the LGBTQ+ community and activists in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region.
EFF has consistently voiced concerns over the misuse of cybercrime laws across the globe, and particularly their impact on marginalized and vulnerable communities—notably LGBTQ+ individuals. T...
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Apple and Google Are Introducing New Ways to Defeat Cell Site Simulators, But Is it Enough?
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/09/apple-and-google-are-introducing-new-ways-defeat-cell-site-simulators-it-enough
September 13, 2023, 5:16 PM
Cell-site simulators (CSS)—also known as IMSI Catchers and Stingrays—are a tool that law enforcement and governments use to track the location of phones, intercept or disrupt communications, spy on foreign governments, or even install malware. Cell-site simulators are also used by criminals to send spam and engage in fraud. We have written previously about the privacy implications of CSS, noting that a common tactic is to trick your phone into connecting to a fake 2G cell tower. In the U.S. ...
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Appeals Court Upholds Public.Resource.Org’s Right to Post Public Laws and Regulations Online
https://www.eff.org/press/releases/appeals-court-upholds-publicresourceorgs-right-post-public-laws-and-regulations
September 12, 2023, 9:18 PM
Our laws belong to all of us, and we should be able to find, read, and share them free of registration requirements, fees, and other roadblocks.SAN FRANCISCO—Technical standards like fire and electrical codes developed by private organizations but incorporated into public law can be freely disseminated without any liability for copyright infringement, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday. 
Tuesday’s ruling by a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Cir...
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Federal Judge Upholds State Department Rule Requiring Visa Applicants to Disclose Social Media Information
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/09/federal-judge-upholds-state-department-rule-requiring-visa-applicants-disclose
September 12, 2023, 8:36 PM
Since 2019, people applying for a visa to the United States have had to register their social media accounts with the U.S. government as part of the application process. Two U.S.-based documentary film organizations that regularly collaborate with non-U.S. filmmakers and other international partners sued the State Department shortly after the policy went into effect, challenging the rule on First Amendment and other grounds. EFF filed an amicus brief in the district court in 2020 arguing that ev...
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EFF Award Winner: Signal Foundation
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/09/eff-award-winner-signal-foundation
September 12, 2023, 4:57 PM
In 1992 EFF presented our very first awards recognizing key leaders and organizations advancing innovation and championing digital rights. Now in 2023 we are continuing to celebrate the accomplishments of people working toward a better future for technology users with the EFF Awards!
All are invited to attend the EFF Awards! Whether you are an activist, an EFF supporter, a student interested in cyberlaw or public interest technology, or someone who wants to eat good food and drink with other coo...
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