Bad Data “For Good”: How Data Brokers Try to Hide Behind Academic Research
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:...
General Monitoring is not the Answer to the Problem of Online Harms
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...
EFF & ACLU Brief: SFPD Violated Surveillance Law by Spying on Protests for Black Lives
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...
Playing for All the Jelly Beans at the EFF Benefit Poker Tournament at DEF CON
Online Platforms Should Stop Partnering with Government Agencies to Remove Content
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.Update 11/23: EFF welcomes the Oversight Board’s...
How California Reproductive Health Workers Can Protect Information They Submit to the Government
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...
Hacking the Future at DEF CON 30
Victory! Federal Court Upholds First Amendment Protections for Student’s Off-Campus Social Media Post
The UK Online Safety Bill Attacks Free Speech and Encryption
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...
