Automated License Plate Readers (ALPRs) are surveillance systems that use high-speed cameras to capture images of license plates, convert them into searchable vehicle location data, and aggregate this information into centralized databases. Police and private companies—like Flock Safety—can search these databases to track vehicles across time and location, often without a warrant or any suspicion of wrongdoing.

Like many mass surveillance technologies that claim to be a silver bullet solution, ALPR systems are error-prone and deeply problematic—so much so that cities across the country are now rejecting Flock contracts outright. Federal oversight is sorely needed to protect the public from the inevitable abuses of ALPRs by federal and local law enforcement.

Sold as modernization, reform, and a "tough on crime" fix, police technology and its uses are increasingly diffuse. The industry regularly churns out new surveillance tools, often at the expense of privacy and civil liberties, not to mention taxpayer dollars. While some of these purchases are funded through federal grants and private donors, they are also becoming a larger portion of local and state budgets.

This guide helps journalists see through the spin. It breaks down how policing technology companies market their tools and how those sales claims – which are often misleading – get recycled into media coverage. We offer tools for asking better questions, understanding incentives, and finding local accountability stories in your community.

All Americans have a First Amendment right to record law enforcement, including local police and federal officers such as those from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP). Although the Supreme Court has not squarely ruled on the issue, nine different federal appellate courts have directly recognized and affirmed this right, relying on decades of Supreme Court precedent.

Despite reasonably exercising your First Amendment rights, law enforcement officers may illegally retaliate against you in a number of ways, including arrest, destruction of your device, and bodily harm. They may also try to retaliate by harming the person being arrested. We urge you to remain alert and mindful about this possibility.

Online child safety is a complex issue. Many recent legislative proposals look to require platforms to verify users' ages to see various types of content or access critical services. But without fail, these "age assurance," "age verification," or "age estimation" systems hurt user privacy and increase the risks of identity theft.

There are a variety of age determination options, but all have serious privacy, accuracy, or security problems.

No method of age verification is both privacy-protective and entirely accurate. These methods don’t each fit somewhere on a spectrum of “more safe” and “less safe,” or “more accurate” and “less accurate.” Rather, they each fall on a spectrum of “dangerous in one way” to “dangerous in a different way.” 

IN THE MATTER OF Revision to Rules of Practice Before the Patent Trialand Appeal Board
Docket No. PTO-P-2025-0025
COMMENTS OF THE ELECTRONIC FRONTIER FOUNDATION

Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) writes to express our deep concern over efforts to preempt state artificial intelligence (AI) laws though inclusion in the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). These concerns remain regardless of whether these preemption proposals are in the NDAA, a standalone bill, or an executive order.

A broad AI moratorium, or punitive measures against states that have passed laws to address the concerns that AI raises, would ignore the real concerns of everyday Americans in favor of a few, deep-pocketed companies looking to set their own rules.

We respectfully urge you to oppose federal preemption of stronger state AI laws in the NDAA or in future legislation that comes before Congress.

Face recognition is one of the most intrusive of all surveillance technologies. There are already numerous instances of law enforcement using this technology to misidentify and arrest innocent people. Now, immigration officers are harassing people on the streets using this mobile technology, including American citizens.

When software linked to a surveillance camera scans a person’s face, it creates warrantless biometric records of all people walking by, whether they are suspected of a crime or not.

This technology poses a threat to our privacy and safety. Congress should immediately ban government use of face surveillance.

EFF Executive Director Position Specification

Transcript of the 2025 EFF Awards live event. You can watch the recording of the event on YouTube and the Internet Archive.