First Court in California Suppresses Evidence from Overbroad Geofence Warrant
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/10/california-court-suppresses-evidence-overbroad-geofence-warrant
October 11, 2022, 8:58 PM
A California trial court has held a geofence warrant issued to the San Francisco Police Department violated the Fourth Amendment and California’s landmark electronic communications privacy law, CalECPA. The court suppressed evidence stemming from the warrant, becoming the first court in California to do so. EFF filed an amicus brief early on in the case, arguing geofence warrants are unconstitutional.
The case is People v. Dawes and involved a 2018 burglary in a residential neighborhood. Priva...
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Digital Rights Updates with EFFector 34.5
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/10/digital-rights-updates-effector-345
October 7, 2022, 5:43 PM
Want the latest news on your digital rights? Well, you're in luck! Version 34, issue 5 of our EFFector newsletter is out now. Catch up on the latest EFF news by reading our newsletter or listening to the audio version below. This issue covers EFF's current work, including our investigation into Fog Data Science, our guide to better privacy practices for nonprofit organizations, and our video and essay on how an interoperable Facebook of the future could work.
LISTEN ON YouTube
EFFECTOR 34.5 - Ho...
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Copyright Trolls Target Users in Brazil, Threatening Due Process and Data Protection Rights. Civil Society Groups Are There to Help
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/10/copyright-trolls-target-users-brazil-threatening-due-process-and-data-protection
October 7, 2022, 5:18 PM
Copyright trolls typically don’t produce or distribute content, but instead make money off of copyrighted material by using the threat of litigation to shake down people who allegedly download movies and other content over the internet—a business model that invites harassment and abuse. These entities operate in many countries around the world, and have recently cropped up in Brazil, with predatory practices that threaten the due process, privacy, and data protection rights of thousands of i...
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Derechos Digitales Raises the Bar for Chilean ISPs' Privacy Commitments in New Report
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/10/derechos-digitales-raises-bar-chilean-isps-privacy-commitments-new-report
October 7, 2022, 4:40 PM
Chile’s internet service providers (ISPs) have over the last five years improved transparency about how they protect their users’ data, thanks in large part to Latin American digital rights group Derechos Digitales shining a light on their practices through annual ¿Quien Defiende Tus Datos? (Who Defends Your Data?) reports.
Better transparency about when and how ISPs turn data over to the government is a win for Chile’s mobile and internet users, but increased state surveillance demands a...
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A National Lab Is Promoting a "Digital Police Officer" Fantasy for Law Enforcement and Border Control
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/10/national-lab-promoting-digital-police-officer-fantasy-law-enforcement-and-border
October 6, 2022, 9:23 PM
Researchers at a national laboratory are forecasting a future where police and border agents are assisted by artificial intelligence, not as a software tool but as an autonomous partner capable of taking the steering wheel during pursuits and scouring social media to target people for closer investigation. The "Digital Police Officer" or "D-PO" is presented as a visionary concept, but the proposal reads like a pitch for the most dystopian buddy cop movie ever.
The research team is based out of ...
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Court’s Decision Upholding Disastrous Texas Social Media Law Puts The State, Rather Than Internet Users, in Control of Everyone’s Speech Online
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/10/courts-decision-upholding-disastrous-texas-social-media-law-puts-state-rather
October 6, 2022, 5:54 PM
The First Amendment and the freedom of speech and expression it provides has helped make the internet what it is today: a place for diverse communities, support networks, and forums of all stripes to share information and connect people. Individuals and groups exercise their constitutional right to host and moderate sites that offer a common place for people who share a hobby, a religious belief, a political opinion, or a love for a particular kind of music.Online platforms, from Facebook to you...
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Snowflake Makes It Easy For Anyone to Fight Censorship
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/10/snowflake-makes-it-easy-anyone-fight-censorship
October 4, 2022, 10:40 PM
Tor, the onion router, remains one of the most effective censorship circumvention technologies. Millions of people use the Tor network every day to access the internet without fear of surveillance and censorship.
Most people get on the Tor network by downloading the Tor Browser and connecting to a relay. But some countries, such as Iran and Russia, block direct access to the Tor network. In those countries people have to use what are known as “Tor Bridges” to circumvent national firewalls. T...
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New Federal and State Court Rulings Show Courts are Divided on the Scope of Cell Phone Searches Post-Riley
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/10/new-federal-and-state-court-rulings-show-courts-are-divided-scope-cell-phone
October 4, 2022, 7:44 PM
This blog post was co-written with EFF Legal Intern Allie Schiele
There is no dispute that cell phones contain a lot of personal information. The Supreme Court recognized in 2014 in Riley v. California that a cell phone is “not just another technological convenience. With all they contain and all they may reveal, they hold for many Americans ‘the privacies of life’.” For this reason, the Court held that the police generally need a warrant to search one. But what happens when police do ge...
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California Leads on Reproductive and Trans Health Data Privacy
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/09/california-leads-reproductive-and-trans-health-data-privacy
October 1, 2022, 6:21 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. We can expect similar tactics from state officials who claim that parents who allow their transgender youth to receive gender-affirming health care should be investigated for child abuse.
So it is great news that California Gov. Gavin Newsom just signed three bills that wi...
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EFF to NJ court: Give defendants information regarding police use of facial recognition technology
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/09/eff-nj-court-give-defendants-information-regarding-police-use-facial-recognition
September 30, 2022, 9:42 PM
We’ve all read the news stories: study after study shows that facial recognition algorithms are not always reliable, and that error rates spike significantly when involving faces of folks of color, especially Black women, as well as trans and nonbinary people. Yet this technology is widely used by law enforcement for identifying suspects in criminal investigations. By refusing to disclose the specifics of that process, law enforcement have effectively prevented criminal defendants from challen...
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Victory! Court Unseals Records Showing Patent Troll’s Shakedown Efforts
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/09/victory-court-unseals-records-showing-patent-trolls-shakedown-efforts
September 30, 2022, 9:02 PM
EFF has prevailed in a years-long effort to make public a series of court records that show how a notorious patent troll, Uniloc, uses litigation threats to extracts payments from a variety of businesses.
Uniloc earlier this month complied with a federal district court’s unsealing order by making public redacted versions of several previously sealed documents. That ended more than three years’ worth of litigation, including two appeals, in which EFF sought public access to judicial records i...
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Google Loses Appeal Against EU's Record Antitrust Fine, But Will Big Tech Ever Change?
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/09/google-loses-appeal-against-eus-record-antitrust-fine-will-big-tech-ever-change
September 29, 2022, 6:12 PM
The EU continues to crack down on big tech companies with its full arsenal of antitrust rules. This month, Google lost its appeal against a record fine, now slightly trimmed to €4.13 billion, for abusing its dominant position through the tactics it used to keep traffic on Android devices flowing through to the Google search engine. The EU General Court largely upheld the EU Commission’s decision from 2018 that Google had imposed unlawful restrictions on manufacturers of Android mobile device...
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Automated License Plate Readers Threaten Abortion Access. Here's How Policymakers Can Mitigate the Risk
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/09/automated-license-plate-readers-threaten-abortion-access-heres-how-policymakers
September 28, 2022, 5:23 PM
Over the last decade, a vast number of law enforcement agencies around the country have adopted a mass surveillance technology that uses cameras to track the vehicles of every driver on the road, with little thought or respect given to the ways this technology might be abused. Now, in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court's Dobbs ruling, that technology may soon be turned against people seeking abortions, the people who support them, and the workers who provide reproductive healthcare.
We're talki...
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EFF Urges FTC to Address Security and Privacy Problems in Daycare and Early Education Apps
https://www.eff.org/press/releases/eff-urges-ftc-address-security-and-privacy-problems-daycare-and-early-education-apps
September 28, 2022, 4:11 PM
An EFF study found the apps compromise young children’s data, and current laws don’t address the problem.SAN FRANCISCO—The Federal Trade Commission must review the lack of privacy and security protections among daycare and early education apps, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) urged Wednesday in a letter to Chair Lina Khan.
Daycare and preschool applications frequently include notifications of feedings, diaper changes, pictures, activities, and which guardian picked up or dropped o...
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Google’s Perilous Plan for a Cloud Center in Saudi Arabia is an Irresponsible Threat to Human Rights
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/09/googles-perilous-plan-cloud-center-saudi-arabia-irresponsible-threat-human-rights
September 27, 2022, 2:59 PM
On August 9, a Saudi woman was sentenced to 34 years in prison by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s notorious specialized criminal court in Riyadh. Her crime? Having a Twitter account and following and retweeting dissidents and activists.
That same day, a federal jury in San Francisco convicted a former Twitter employee of money laundering and other charges for spying—on behalf of the kingdom—on Twitter users critical of the Saudi government.
These are just the latest examples of Saudi Arabia...
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Ban Government Use of Face Recognition In the UK
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/09/ban-government-use-face-recognition-uk
September 26, 2022, 6:20 PM
In 2015, Leicestershire Police scanned the faces of 90,000 individuals at a music festival in the UK and checked these images against a database of people suspected of crimes across Europe. This was the first known deployment of Live Facial Recognition (LFR) at an outdoor public event in the UK. In the years since, the surveillance technology has been frequently used throughout the country with little government oversight and no electoral mandate. 
Face recognition presents an inherent threat t...
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Study of Electronic Monitoring Smartphone Apps Confirms Advocates’ Concerns of Privacy Harms
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/09/study-electronic-monitoring-smartphone-apps-confirms-advocates-concerns-privacy
September 23, 2022, 5:35 PM
Researchers at the University of Washington and Harvard Law School recently published a groundbreaking study analyzing the technical capabilities of 16 electronic monitoring (EM) smartphone apps used as “alternatives” to criminal and civil detention. The study, billed as the “first systematic analysis of the electronic monitoring apps ecosystem,” confirmed many advocates’ fears that EM apps allow access to wide swaths of information, often contain third-party trackers, and are frequent...
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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 comprising of mayoral and Board appointees. The ordinance, backed by the Mayor and the SFPD, enab...
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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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