Since 1992, the Electronic Frontier Foundation has presented awards to key leaders in the fight for freedom and innovation online. EFF’s annual EFF Awards (previously the Pioneer Award Ceremony) celebrates the longtime stalwarts working on behalf of technology users, both in the public eye and behind the scenes.

Past Winners

2022: Alaa Abd El-Fattah; Digital Defense Fund; Kyle Wiens

2021: Kade Crockford, Pam Dixon, Matt Mitchell

2020: Joy Buolamwini, Dr. Timnit Gebru, Deborah Raji; Danielle Blunt; Open Technology Fund Community

2019: danah boyd, Oakland Privacy, William Gibson

2018: Stephanie Lenz, Joe McNamee, Sarah T. Roberts

2017: Annie Game, Mike Masnick, Chelsea Manning

2016: Malkia Cyril, Max Schrems, Keys Under Doormats, Senators Mark Leno and Joel Anderson

2015: Caspar Bowden, The Citizen Lab, Anriette Esterhuysen and the Association for Progressive Communications, and Kathy Sierra

2014: Trevor Paglen, Frank La Rue, Zoe Lofgren

2013: Aaron Swartz, James Love, Glenn Greenwald, and Laura Poitras

2012: Andrew (bunnie) Huang, Jérémie Zimmerman, The Tor project

2011: Ron Wyden, Ian Goldberg, and Nawaat.org

2010: Steven Aftergood, James Boyle, Pamela Jones and the Groklaw Website, and Hari Krishna Prasad Vemuru

2009: Limor "Ladyada" Fried, Harri Hursti, and Carl Malamud

2008: The Mozilla Foundation and its Chairman Mitchell Baker, Michael Geist, and Mark Klein

2007: Yochai Benkler, Cory Doctorow, and Bruce Schneier

2006: Craigslist, Gigi Sohn, and Jimmy Wales

2005: Mitch Kapor, Edward Felten, and Patrick Ball

2004: Kim Alexander, David Dill, and Aviel Rubin

2003: Amy Goodman, Eben Moglen, and David Sobel

2002: Jon Johansen and Writers of DeCSS, Dan Gillmor, and Beth Givens

2001: Bruce Ennis, Seth Finkelstein, and Stephanie Perrin

2000: "Librarians Everywhere", Tim Berners-Lee, and Phil Agre

1999: Jon Postel, Drazen Pantic, and Simon Davies

1998: Linus Torvalds, Richard Stallman, and Barbara Simons

1997: Hedy Lamarr, Johan Helsingius, and Marc Rotenberg

1996: Robert Metcalfe, Peter Neumann, and Shabbir Safdar and Matthew Blaze

1995: Philip Zimmermann, Anita Borg, and Willis Ware

1994: Ivan Sutherland, Bill Atkinson, Whitfield Diffie and Martin Hellman, Murray Turoff and Starr Roxanne Hiltz, Lee Felsenstein, and the WELL

1993: Paul Baran, Vinton Cerf, Ward Christensen, and Dave Hughes and the USENET software developers

1992: Douglas C. Engelbart, Robert Kahn, Jim Warren, Tom Jennings, and Andrzej Smereczynski