Speaking Freely: Ron Deibert
Ron Deibert is a Canadian professor of political science, a philosopher, an author, and the founder of the renowned Citizen Lab, situated in the Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto. He is perhaps best known to readers for his research on targeted surveillance, which won the Citizen Lab a 2015 EFF Award. I had the pleasure of working with Ron early on in my career on another project he co-founded, the OpenNet Initiative, a project that documented internet filtering (blocking) in more than 65 countries, and his mentorship and work has been incredibly influential for me. We sat down for an interview to discuss his views on free expression, its overlaps with privacy, and much more.
Protecting Kids on Social Media Act: Amended and Still Problematic
Senators who believe that children and teens must be shielded from social media have updated the problematic Protecting Kids on Social Media Act, though it remains an unconstitutional bill that replaces parents’ choices about what their children can do online with a government-mandated prohibition. As we wrote in...
On His 42nd Birthday, Alaa Abd El Fattah’s Family Files UN Petition for His Release
Today is the birthday of Alaa Abd El Fattah, a prominent Egyptian-British coder, blogger, activist, and one of the most high-profile political prisoners in the entire Arab world. This will be the tenth birthday that he will spend in prison. But we are newly optimistic for his release: This...
EFF to Supreme Court: Fifth Amendment Protects People from Being Forced to Enter or Hand Over Cell Phone Passcodes to the Police
WASHINGTON, D.C.—The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) today asked the Supreme Court to overturn a ruling undermining Fifth Amendment protections against self-incrimination and find that constitutional safeguards prevent police from forcing people to provide or use passcodes for their cell phones so officers can access the tremendous amount of private...
To Best Serve Students, Schools Shouldn’t Try to Block Generative AI, or Use Faulty AI Detection Tools
Speaking Freely: Agustina Del Campo
Low Budget Should Not Mean High Risk: Kids' Tablet Came Preloaded with Sketchyware
[Update: 10/02/2024]: Google has taken the tablet distributor Dragon Touch, off of their list of Play Protect certified phones and tablets. We are glad to see this development and encourage continued diligence in updating this list to keep consumers safe and make informed decisions with Android...
EFF Urges FTC to Address American Resellers of Malware on Android TV Set-Top Boxes
SAN FRANCISCO—The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) must act to halt sales by Amazon, AliExpress, and other resellers of Android television set-top boxes and mobile devices manufactured by AllWinner and RockChip that have been pre-infected with malware before ever reaching consumers, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) urged Tuesday in ...
To Address Online Harms, We Must Consider Privacy First
Reauthorizing Mass Surveillance Shouldn’t be Tied to Funding the Government
Section 702 is the controversial and much-abused mass surveillance authority that expires in December unless Congress renews it. EFF and others have been working hard to get real reforms into the law and have opposed a renewal, and now, we’re hearing about a rushed attempt to tie renewal to funding...
