San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors Grants Police More Surveillance Powers
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/09/san-franciscos-board-supervisors-grants-police-more-surveillance-powers
September 22, 2022, 5:24 PM
In a 4-7 vote, San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors passed a 15-month pilot program granting the San Francisco Police Department (SFPD) more live surveillance powers. This was despite the objections of a diverse coalition of community groups and civil rights organizations, residents, the Bar Association of San Francisco, and even members of the city’s Police Commission, a civilian oversight body comprised of mayoral and Board appointees. The ordinance, backed by the Mayor and the SFPD, enabl...
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Lawsuit: SMUD and Sacramento Police Violate State Law and Utility Customers’ Privacy by Sharing Data Without a Warrant
https://www.eff.org/press/releases/lawsuit-smud-and-sacramento-police-violate-state-law-and-utility-customers-privacy
September 22, 2022, 2:37 PM
The public power utility and police racially profiled Asian communities in the illegal data-sharing scheme.SACRAMENTO—The Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD) searches entire zip codes’ worth of people’s private data and discloses it to police without a warrant or any suspicion of wrongdoing, according to a privacy lawsuit filed Wednesday in Sacramento County Superior Court.
SMUD’s bulk disclosure of customer utility data turns its entire customer base into potential leads for po...
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How to Ditch Facebook Without Losing Your Friends (Or Family, Customers or Communities)
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/09/how-ditch-facebook-without-losing-your-friends-or-family-customers-or-communities
September 19, 2022, 4:44 PM
Today, we launch “How to Ditch Facebook Without Losing Your Friends” - a narrated slideshow and essay explaining how Facebook locks in its users, how interoperability can free them, and what it would feel like to use an “interoperable Facebook” of the future, such as the one contemplated by the US ACCESS Act.


%3Ciframe%20src%3D%22https%3A%2F%2Farchive.org%2Fembed%2Finteroperable-facebook%22%20webkitallowfullscreen%3D%22true%22%20mozallowfullscreen%3D%22true%22%20allowfulls...
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Giving Big Corporations “Closed Generic” Top-Level Domain Names to Run as Private Kingdoms Is Still a Bad Idea
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/09/giving-big-corporations-closed-generic-top-level-domain-names-run-private-kingdoms
September 16, 2022, 9:50 PM
No business can own the generic word for the product it sells. We would find it preposterous if a single airline claimed exclusive use of the word “air,” or a broadband service tried to stop its rivals from using the word “broadband.” Until this year, it seemed settled that the internet’s top-level domain names (like .com, .org, and so on) would follow the same obvious rule. Alas, ICANN (the California nonprofit that governs the global domain name system) seems intent on taking domains...
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EFF’s DEF CON 30 Puzzle—SOLVED
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/09/effs-def-con-30-puzzle-solved
September 15, 2022, 9:48 PM
Puzzlemaster Aaron Steimle of the Muppet Liberation Front contributed to this post.
Every year, EFF joins thousands of computer security professionals, tinkerers, and hobbyists for Hacker Summer Camp, the affectionate term used for the series of Las Vegas technology conferences including BSidesLV, Black Hat, DEF CON, and more. EFF has a long history of standing with online creators and security researchers at events like these for the benefit of all tech users. We’re proud to honor this commun...
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It’s Time For A Federal Anti-SLAPP Law To Protect Online Speakers
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/09/its-time-federal-anti-slapp-law-protect-online-speakers
September 15, 2022, 7:47 PM
Our country’s fair and independent courts exist to resolve serious disputes. Unfortunately, some parties abuse the civil litigation process to silence others’ speech, rather than resolve legitimate claims. These types of censorious lawsuits have been dubbed Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation, or SLAPPs, and they have been on the rise over the past few decades. 
Plaintiffs who bring SLAPPs intend to use the high cost of litigation to harass, intimidate, and silence critics who a...
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Members of Congress Urge FTC to Investigate Fog Data Science
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/09/members-congress-urge-ftc-investigate-fog-data-science
September 15, 2022, 7:30 PM
In the week since EFF and the Associated Press exposed how Fog Data Science purchases geolocation data on hundreds of millions of digital devices in the United States, and maps them for easy-to-use and cheap mass surveillance by police, elected officials have voiced serious concerns about this dangerous tech.
In a strong letter to Lina Khan, the chair of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), Rep. Anna Eshoo of California on Tuesday criticized the “significant Fourth Amendment search and seizure...
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The Fight to Overturn FOSTA, an Unconstitutional Internet Censorship Law, Continues
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/09/fight-overturn-fosta-unconstitutional-internet-censorship-law-continues
September 15, 2022, 6:04 PM
More than four years after its enactment, FOSTA remains an unconstitutional law that broadly censored the internet and harmed sex workers and others by chilling their ability to speak, organize, and access information online.
And the fight to overturn FOSTA continues. Last week, two human rights organizations, a digital library, a sex worker activist, and a certified massage therapist filed their opening brief in a case that seeks to strike down the law for its many constitutional violations.
...
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San Francisco Police Must End Irresponsible Relationship with the Northern California Fusion Center
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/09/san-francisco-police-must-end-irresponsible-relationship-northern-california
September 15, 2022, 12:57 PM
In yet another failure to follow the rules, the San Francisco Police Department is collaborating with the regional fusion center with nothing in writing—no agreements, no contracts, nothing— governing the relationship, according to new records released to EFF in its ongoing complaint against the agency.
This means that there is no document in place that establishes the limits and responsibilities for sharing and handling criminal justice data or intelligence between SFPD and the fusion cent...
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EFF’s “Cover Your Tracks” Will Detect Your Use of iOS 16’s Lockdown Mode
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/09/effs-cover-your-tracks-will-detect-your-use-ios-16s-lockdown-mode
September 12, 2022, 5:57 PM
Apple’s new iOS 16 offers a powerful tool for its most vulnerable users. Lockdown Mode reduces the avenues attackers have to hack into users’ phones by disabling certain often-exploited features. While providing a solid defense against intrusion, it is also trivial to detect that this new feature is enabled on a device. Our web fingerprinting tool Cover Your Tracks has incorporated detection of Lockdown Mode and alerts the user that we’ve determined they have this mode enabled.
Over the l...
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U.S. Federal Employees Can Take A Stand for Digital Freedoms
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/09/us-federal-employees-can-take-stand-digital-freedoms
September 9, 2022, 3:29 PM
It’s that time of the year again when the weather starts to cool down and the leaves start to turn all different shades and colors. More importantly, it is also time for U.S. federal employees to pledge their support for digital freedoms through the Combined Federal Campaign (CFC)!
The pledge period for the CFC is underway and EFF needs your help. Last year, U.S. federal employees raised over $34,000 for EFF through the CFC, helping us fight for free expression, privacy, and innovation on the ...
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EFF to California Governor: Protect Abortion Data Privacy
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/09/eff-california-governor-protect-abortion-data-privacy
September 8, 2022, 11:28 PM
In the wake of the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision, anti-choice sheriffs and bounty hunters will try to investigate and punish abortion seekers based on their internet browsing, private messaging, and phone app location data. Legislators must act now to protect this personal data. Reproductive justice requires data privacy.
That’s why EFF urges California Governor Gavin Newsom to sign A.B. 1242, authored by Assemblymember Rebecca Bauer-Kahan. This bill would protect the data privacy of people...
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VICTORY: Slack Offers Retention Settings to Free Workspaces
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/09/victory-slack-offers-retention-settings-free-workspaces
September 7, 2022, 9:26 PM
In a victory for users, Slack has fixed its long-standing retention problems for free workspaces. Instead of holding onto your messages on its servers for as long as your workspace exists, Slack is now giving free workspace admins the option to automatically delete all messages older than 90 days. This basic ability to decide which information Slack should keep and which information it should delete should be available to all users, and we applaud Slack for making this change.
The new retention ...
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FTC Sues Location Data Broker
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/09/ftc-sues-location-data-broker
September 7, 2022, 9:22 PM
Phone app location data brokers are a growing menace to our privacy and safety. All you did was click a box while downloading an app. Now the app tracks your every move and sends it to a broker, which then sells your location data to the highest bidder.
So three cheers for the Federal Trade Commission for seeking to end this harmful marketplace! The FTC recently sued Kochava, a location data broker, alleging the company violated a federal ban on unfair business practices. The FTC’s complaint a...
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EFF to Ninth Circuit: Social Media Content Moderation is Not "State Action"
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/09/eff-ninth-circuit-social-media-content-moderation-not-state-action
September 7, 2022, 8:30 PM
Former EFF intern Shashank Sirivolu contributed to this blog post.  
Social media users who have sued companies for deleting, demonetizing, and otherwise moderating their content have tried several arguments that this violates their constitutional rights. Courts have consistently ruled against them because social media platforms themselves have the First Amendment right to moderate content. The government and the courts cannot tell them what speech they must remove or, on the flip side, what ...
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Arizona Law Tramples People’s Constitutional Right to Record Police
https://www.eff.org/press/releases/arizona-law-tramples-peoples-constitutional-right-record-police
September 6, 2022, 3:54 PM
EFF, two Arizona chapters of the National Lawyers Guild, Poder in Action, and Mass Liberation AZ filed a brief in federal court opposing the government's attempt to thwart police accountability.SAN FRANCISCO–A new Arizona law that bans people from recording videos within eight feet of police violates the constitutional rights of legal observers, grassroots activists, and other Arizonans, says a brief filed Friday in federal court by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), two Arizona ch...
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Honoring Peter Eckersley, Who Made the Internet a Safer Place for Everyone
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/09/honoring-peter-eckersley-who-made-internet-safer-place-everyone
September 5, 2022, 7:45 PM
With deep sadness, EFF mourns the loss of our friend, the technologist, activist, and cybersecurity expert Peter Eckersley. Peter worked at EFF for a dozen years and was EFF’s Chief Computer Scientist for many of those. Peter was a tremendous force in making the internet a safer place. He was recently diagnosed with colon cancer and passed away suddenly on Friday. 
The impact of Peter’s work on encrypting the web cannot be overstated. The fact that transport layer encryption on the web is s...
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Hollywood’s Insistence on New Draconian Copyright Rules Is Not About Protecting Artists
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/09/hollywoods-insistence-new-draconian-copyright-rules-not-about-protecting-artists
September 1, 2022, 7:28 PM
Stop us if you’ve heard these: piracy is driving artists out of business. The reason they are starving is because no one pays for things, just illegally downloads them. You wouldn’t steal a car. These arguments are old and being dragged back out to get support for rules that would strangle online expression. And they are, as ever, about Hollywood wanting to control creativity and not protecting artists.
When it comes to box office numbers, they’ve remained pretty consistent except when a g...
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How Ad Tech Became Cop Spy Tech
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/08/how-ad-tech-became-cop-spy-tech
September 1, 2022, 5:25 AM
This article is part of EFF’s investigation of location data brokers and Fog Data Science. Be sure to check out our issue page on Location Data Brokers.
If a company wants to advertise something to you on the internet, it first has to know who you are and what you like to buy. There are many different approaches to gathering this data, but all generally have one goal in common: they link you with the data generated by your devices.
If law enforcement wants to track you via data generated by yo...
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Fog Revealed: A Guided Tour of How Cops Can Browse Your Location Data
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/08/fog-revealed-guided-tour-how-cops-can-browse-your-location-data
September 1, 2022, 5:23 AM
This article is part of EFF’s investigation of location data brokers and Fog Data Science. Be sure to check out our issue page on Location Data Brokers.
In Part 1 of our series on Fog Data Science, we saw how when you give some apps permission to view your location, it can end up being packaged and sold to numerous other companies. Fog Data Science is one of those companies, and it has created a sleek search engine called Fog Reveal that allows cops to browse through that location data as if t...
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What is Fog Data Science? Why is the Surveillance Company so Dangerous?
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/06/what-fog-data-science-why-surveillance-company-so-dangerous
September 1, 2022, 5:22 AM
This article is part of EFF’s investigation of location data brokers and Fog Data Science. Be sure to check out our issue page on Location Data Brokers.
An EFF investigation of public records acquired from dozens of state and local law enforcement agencies has uncovered a widely-used mass surveillance technology. Americans are accustomed to hearing about how the National Security Agency (NSA), the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and even the domestically-focused Federal Bureau of Investiga...
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Fog Data Science Puts our Fourth Amendment Rights up for Sale
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/08/fog-data-science-puts-our-fourth-amendment-rights-sale
September 1, 2022, 5:22 AM
This article is part of EFF’s investigation of location data brokers and Fog Data Science. Be sure to check out our issue page on Location Data Brokers.
The data broker selling people’s location data to any local, state, and federal agency willing to buy it is putting our Fourth Amendment rights at risk. 
EFF recently published its investigation into Fog Data Science, which claims in marketing materials sent to law enforcement that it has billions of location data points taken from million...
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How Law Enforcement Around the Country Buys Cell Phone Location Data Wholesale
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/08/how-law-enforcement-around-country-buys-cell-phone-location-data-wholesale
September 1, 2022, 5:22 AM
This article is part of EFF’s investigation of location data brokers and Fog Data Science. Be sure to check out our issue page on Location Data Brokers.
In Chino, CA, police used Fog Data Science’s geolocation service to do massive sweeps revealing who was near minor theft and burglary scenes. In a rural Missouri murder investigation, Fog’s service was used to track a babysitter who was never a suspect. In Greensboro, NC, a crime analysis supervisor raised red flags about its constitution...
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Inside Fog Data Science, the Secretive Company Selling Mass Surveillance to Local Police
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/08/inside-fog-data-science-secretive-company-selling-mass-surveillance-local-police
September 1, 2022, 5:21 AM
This article is part of EFF’s investigation of location data brokers and Fog Data Science. Be sure to check out our issue page on Location Data Brokers.
A data broker has been selling raw location data about individual people to federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies, EFF has learned. This personal data isn’t gathered from cell phone towers or tech giants like Google — it’s obtained by the broker via thousands of different apps on Android and iOS app stores as part of the la...
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The SECURE Notarization Act Will Create a Race to the Bottom for Privacy
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/08/secure-notarization-act-will-create-race-bottom-privacy
August 31, 2022, 10:05 PM
Earlier this week, EFF, the Center for Democracy and Technology, and Demand Progress sent a letter to the Senate expressing our concerns about H.R. 3962, The Securing and Enabling Commerce Using Remote and Electronic Notarization Act of 2021 or SECURE Notarization Act. This bill would require states to recognize remote online notarizations that meet a weak minimum federal standard—regardless of whether those notarizations meet potentially stronger pre-existing state standards.
This bill fails...
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EFF Calls for Limiting Mandatory Cooperation, Safeguarding Human Rights in International Cybercrime Investigations as Talks Resume for Proposed UN Cybercrime Treaty
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/08/eff-calls-limiting-mandatory-cooperation-safeguarding-human-rights-international
August 30, 2022, 4:52 PM
In a new round of talks this week to formulate a UN Cybercrime Treaty, EFF is calling for strictly limiting the scope of the convention’s international cooperation provisions and safeguards to ensure that states respect human rights when responding to legal assistance requests.EFF is among a group of digital and human rights organizations participating in the UN-convened talks, which started in February. A third round of discussions that began yesterday in New York focuses on the scope of the ...
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Over-the-Horizon Drones Line Up But Privacy Is Not In Sight
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/08/over-horizon-drones-lineup-privacy-not-sight
August 29, 2022, 4:02 PM
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) will soon rule on Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) drones, which are capable of flying while its operator (pilot) is far away. While these types of drones might offer benefits to society—think of deliveries, infrastructure inspection, and precision agriculture—they also pose serious threats to our privacy. The FAA and the BVLOS industry need to meaningfully address the privacy issues that these types of operations pose to people. Do we want a futu...
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TechCrunch Launches Lookup Tool to Help Android Users Know if Their Device Was Compromised by a Family of Stalkerware Apps
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/08/techcrunch-launches-lookup-tool-help-android-users-know-if-their-device-was
August 26, 2022, 9:28 PM
The scourge of stalkerware—malicious apps used by perpetrators of domestic violence to secretly spy on their victims—is not going unchallenged or unaddressed.
Antivirus makers are increasingly adding stalkerware to the list of apps their products detect on devices; victim support groups help people figure out whether their devices are infected and how to remove the apps; app stores are banning the software and pulling any advertising for it, and law enforcement is investigating and arresting...
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Trans Youths Need Data Sanctuary
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/08/trans-youths-need-data-sanctuary
August 26, 2022, 7:38 PM
A growing number of states have prohibited transgender youths from obtaining gender-affirming health care. So these youths and their families must travel out-of-state for necessary health care. The states they visit are health care sanctuaries.
These states must also be data sanctuaries for transgender youths.
Earlier this year, the governor of Texas ordered state child welfare officials to launch child abuse investigations against parents whose transgender children received gender-affirming hea...
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Victory! South Carolina Will Not Advance Bill That Banned Speaking About Abortions Online
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/08/victory-south-carolina-will-not-advance-bill-banned-speaking-about-abortions
August 26, 2022, 8:01 AM
Since the U.S. Supreme Court overruled a half century of precedent supporting the constitutional right to abortion access, numerous states have moved towards making abortion illegal and restricting additional reproductive health services.
In South Carolina, Republican state Senators Richard Cash, Rex F. Rice and Daniel B. Verdin III introduced Senate Bill 1373 seeking to criminalize abortions. The bill would have also made it a crime to “aid, abet, or conspire with someone to procure an abort...
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Federal Judge: Invasive Online Proctoring "Room Scans" Are Unconstitutional
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/08/federal-judge-invasive-online-proctoring-room-scans-are-also-unconstitutional
August 26, 2022, 12:21 AM
Online proctoring companies employ a lengthy list of dangerous monitoring and tracking techniques in an attempt to determine whether or not students are potentially cheating, many of which are biased and ineffective. This week, one of the more invasive techniques—the “room scan”—was correctly deemed unconstitutional by a federal judge. “Room scans” are a common requirement in proctored exams where students are forced to use their device’s camera to give a 360-degree view of everyth...
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How YouTube’s Partnership with London’s Police Force is Censoring UK Drill Music
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/08/how-youtubes-partnership-londons-police-force-censoring-uks-drill-music
August 25, 2022, 1:25 PM
Originating from the streets of Chicago, drill music is a creative output of inner-city Black youths. It is defined by real life experiences and perspectives, and whilst drill rappers often document gang-related conflict and anti-establishment narratives in their lyrics and music videos, the rap genre is a crucial mouthpiece of artistic and cultural expression. However, London’s police force—the Metropolitan Police, or the Met—have argued that the genre is partly responsible for the rise i...
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Indonesia’s New Draft Criminal Code Restrains Political Dissent
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/08/indonesias-new-draft-criminal-code-cracks-down-political-dissent
August 23, 2022, 7:56 PM
Even in the face of strong public protest over a set of proposed revisions to criminal laws that infringe Indonesians’ free expression rights, the Indonesian Ministry of Law and Human Rights last month sent to the Parliament a new draft of the Criminal Code (CC) that threatens to further chill political dissent and civic participation. In particular, it contains provisions that criminalize defamation and insult of public officials, including the President and members of the government.Indonesi...
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Victory: Government Finally Releases Secretive Court Rulings Sought By EFF
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/08/victory-government-finally-releases-secretive-court-rulings-sought-eff
August 22, 2022, 11:08 PM
More than seven years after Congress mandated it and EFF sued to pry them loose, the government released seven heavily-redacted but previously classified rulings from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court that shed new light on how the secret court interprets key provisions of the laws that authorize mass surveillance.
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) released the redacted versions as required by the USA FREEDOM Act of 2015. More details about the rulings are bel...
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New Proposal Brings Us a Step Closer to Net Neutrality
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/08/new-proposal-brings-us-step-closer-net-neutrality
August 22, 2022, 10:30 PM
Right now, Americans live in a country where the companies that control our access to the internet face little-to-no oversight. In most states, these companies can throttle your service—or that of, say, a fire department fighting the largest wildfire in state history. They can block a service they don’t like. In addition to charging you for access to the internet, they can charge services for access to you, driving up costs artificially. Making matters worse, most of us have little choice of...
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Google’s Scans of Private Photos Led to False Accusations of Child Abuse
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/08/googles-scans-private-photos-led-false-accusations-child-abuse
August 22, 2022, 7:29 PM
Internet users’ private messages, files, and photos of everyday people are increasingly being examined by tech companies, which check the data against government databases. While this is not a new practice, the public is being told this massive scanning should extend to nearly every reach of their online activity so that police can more productively investigate crimes related to child sexual abuse images, sometimes called CSAM. 
We don’t know much about how the public gets watched in this w...
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Code, Speech, and the Tornado Cash Mixer
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/08/code-speech-and-tornado-cash-mixer
August 22, 2022, 5:56 PM
The U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC)'s placement of “Tornado Cash” as an entity on the Specially Designated Nationals (SDN) sanction list raises important questions that are being discussed around the world. OFAC explained its sanction by saying “Tornado Cash (Tornado) is a virtual currency mixer that operates on the Ethereum blockchain and indiscriminately facilitates anonymous transactions by obfuscating their origin, destination, and counterparties, with no attempt to determ...
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Nonprofit Websites Are Full of Trackers. That Should Change.
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/08/tracking-ubiquitous-within-nonprofits-it-doesnt-have-be
August 19, 2022, 7:04 PM
Jump straight to the Online Privacy for Nonprofits Guide to Better Practices
Today, the vast majority of websites and emails that you encounter contain some form of tracking. Third-party cookies let advertisers follow you around the web; tracking pixels in emails confirm whether you’ve opened them; tracking links ensure websites know what you click; some websites even collect data on forms you’ve never actually submitted; still others share detailed interactions, such as appointments you’...
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New Bill Would Bring Back Terrible Software and Genetic Patents
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/08/new-patent-bill-would-open-floodgates-return-terrible-software-and-genetic-patents
August 18, 2022, 7:53 PM
A recently introduced patent bill would authorize patents on abstract ideas just for including computer jargon, and would even legalize the patenting of human genes. The “Patent Eligibility Restoration Act,” sponsored by Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC), explicitly overrides some of the most important Supreme Court decisions of the past 15 years, and would tear down some of the public’s only protections from the worst patent abuses. 
Pro-patent maximalists are trying to label the Tillis bill as a ...
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Where’s EFF? Why EFF Is Sometimes Quiet About Important Cases and Issues
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/08/wheres-eff-why-eff-sometimes-quiet-about-important-cases-and-issues
August 18, 2022, 6:55 PM
When legal issues light up the Internet, people turn to EFF for answers. Whether it’s attacks on coders' rights, overreaching copyright claims online, or governments' efforts to censor or spy on people, we are often among the first to hear about troubling events online, and we're frequently the first place people turn to, both for help and for a broader understanding. 
So why are there times when we’re quiet about something big that is happening around digital rights?  Why are there times ...
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Arrest of a Stalkerware-maker in Australia Underscores Link Between Stalkerware and Domestic Abuse
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/08/arrest-stalkerware-maker-australia-underscores-link-between-stalkerware-and
August 17, 2022, 6:55 PM
The ease with which bad actors can find a worldwide market for malicious apps that spy on people’s digital devices is at the center of an Australian Federal Police case against a man who, starting at the age of 15, wrote a stalkerware application and sold it to 14,500 people in 128 countries.Australian police last month arrested the man, now 24, and identified at least 201 of his Australian customers, in an investigation that began in 2017 and involved a dozen law enforcement agencies in Europ...
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Bad Data “For Good”: How Data Brokers Try to Hide Behind Academic Research
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/08/bad-data-good-how-data-brokers-try-hide-academic-research
August 16, 2022, 7:39 PM
When data broker SafeGraph got caught selling location information on Planned Parenthood visitors, it had a public relations trick up its sleeve. After the company agreed to remove family planning center data from its platforms in response to public outcry, CEO Auren Hoffman tried to flip the narrative: he claimed that his company’s harvesting and sharing of sensitive data was, in fact, an engine for beneficial research on abortion access. He even argued that SafeGraph’s post-scandal removal...
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General Monitoring is not the Answer to the Problem of Online Harms
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/08/general-monitoring-not-answer-problem-online-harms
August 16, 2022, 7:21 AM
Even if you think that online intermediaries should be more proactive in detecting, deprioritizing, or removing certain user speech, the requirements on intermediaries to review all content before publication—often called “general monitoring” or “upload filtering”—raises serious human rights concerns, both for freedom of expression and for privacy.
General monitoring is problematic both when it is directly required by law and when, though not required, it is effectively mandatory b...
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EFF & ACLU Brief: SFPD Violated Surveillance Law by Spying on Protests for Black Lives
https://www.eff.org/press/releases/eff-aclu-brief-sfpd-violated-surveillance-law-spying-protests-black-lives
August 15, 2022, 8:03 PM
Police used private network of 300 surveillance cameras to spy on George Floyd protests in 2020, plaintiffs tell appeals court.SAN FRANCISCO–San Francisco police violated the city’s surveillance technology law by tapping into a private surveillance camera network to spy on demonstrators protesting the 2020 police murder of George Floyd, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Northern California (ACLU) told a state appeals court in a brief fi...
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Playing for All the Jelly Beans at the EFF Benefit Poker Tournament at DEF CON
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/08/playing-all-jelly-beans-eff-benefit-poker-tournament-def-con
August 14, 2022, 2:49 AM
EFF members come from all over the world to DEF CON to experience the world’s largest computer hacking conference and enjoy what Las Vegas has to offer. This year some of EFF’s supporters combined their love for internet freedom and a good time by competing in the first EFF Benefit Poker Tournament hosted by security expert and EFF advisory board member Tarah Wheeler.
Thirty-five EFF supporters and their friends played in the charity tournament on Friday, August 12 at Bally’s Poker Room. T...
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Online Platforms Should Stop Partnering with Government Agencies to Remove Content
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/08/online-platforms-should-stop-partnering-government-agencies-remove-content
August 12, 2022, 8:34 AM
Government involvement in content moderation raises serious human rights concerns in every context, and these concerns are further troubling when the involvement originates with law enforcement. We recently filed a comment with the Meta Oversight Board urging it to treat this issue seriously.
When sites cooperate with government agencies, it leaves the platform inherently biased in favor of the government's favored positions. It gives government entities outsized influence to manipulate content ...
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How California Reproductive Health Workers Can Protect Information They Submit to the Government
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/08/how-california-reproductive-health-workers-can-protect-information-they-submit
August 10, 2022, 6:56 PM
With the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Dobbs reversing long-standing rights to abortion access, workers and volunteers for reproductive health clinics must reevaluate the risks they face (also known as a threat model) and take steps to safeguard their personal information–including information they have submitted to the government.
In 2020, nearly 17% of abortions performed in the United States occured in California, according to data from the Guttmacher Institute, and that number is proje...
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Hacking the Future at DEF CON 30
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/07/hacking-future-def-con-30
August 8, 2022, 4:51 PM
Over nearly three decades, DEF CON grew and evolved into the world's largest hacker conference for computer security professionals, tinkerers, hobbyists, and more. The EFF staff will return to support the community at the Las Vegas summer security conferences—BSides LV, Black Hat USA, and DEF CON—for the first time since 2019, making the DC30 theme of "Hacker Homecoming" all the more appropriate. We may still be trying to escape the shadow of the pandemic, but the EFF staff will be availab...
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Victory! Federal Court Upholds First Amendment Protections for Student’s Off-Campus Social Media Post
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/08/victory-federal-court-upholds-first-amendment-protections-students-campus-social
August 5, 2022, 7:40 PM
EFF intern Emma Plankey contributed to this blog post.
Students should not have to fear expulsion for expressing themselves on social media after school and off-campus, but that is just what happened to the plaintiff in C1.G v. Siegfried. Last month, the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled the student’s expulsion violated his First Amendment rights. The court’s opinion affirms what we argued in an amicus brief last year.
We strongly support the Tenth Circuit’s holding that schools cannot...
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The UK Online Safety Bill Attacks Free Speech and Encryption
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/08/uks-online-safety-bill-attacks-free-speech-and-encryption
August 5, 2022, 3:48 PM
The UK government has had more than a year to revise its Online Safety Bill into a proposal that wouldn’t harm users’ basic rights. It has failed to do so, and the bill should be scrapped. The current bill is a threat to free expression, and it undermines the encryption that we all rely on for security and privacy online. 
The government intended to advance and vote on the Online Safety Bill last month, but the scheduled vote was postponed until a new Prime Minister of the UK can be chosen....
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