Cross-Border Access to User Data by Law Enforcement: 2021 Year in Review
Law enforcement around the world is apparently getting its holiday wish list, thanks to the Council of Europe’s adoption of a flawed new protocol to the Budapest Convention, a treaty governing procedures for accessing digital evidence across borders in criminal investigations. The Second Additional Protocol (“the Protocol”) to the...
Fighting For A More Open, Balanced Patent System: 2021 in Review
At EFF, we’ve always stood up for the freedom to tinker and innovate. Unfortunately, our patent system doesn’t promote those freedoms. In some areas, like software, it’s causing much more harm than good. And the system is rife with patent trolls: companies that are focused on licensing and litigating patents,...
Fighting For You From Coast to Coast: 2021 In Review
EFF makes its presence known in statehouses across the country to advocate for strong privacy laws, broadband access, and to protect and advance your digital rights. The pandemic has changed a lot about how state legislators operate in 2021, but one thing has remained the same: EFF steps up to...
Police Use of Artificial Intelligence: 2021 in Review
Decades ago, when imagining the practical uses of artificial intelligence, science fiction writers imagined autonomous digital minds that could serve humanity. Sure, sometimes a HAL 9000 or WOPR would subvert expectations and go rogue, but that was very much unintentional, right? And for many aspects of life, artificial...
2021 Year in Review: EFF Graphics
EFF's small design team sometimes struggles to keep up with the frenetic pace of our activist, legal and development colleagues. Whenever EFF launches a new legal case, activism campaign, tech project, or development campaign, we try to create unique and inspiring graphics to promote it. At EFF, we find that...
In 2021, the Police Took a Page Out of the NSA’s Playbook: 2021 in Review
Every State Has a Chance to Deliver a “Fiber for All” Broadband Future: 2021 in Review
This year’s passage of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA)—also known as the bipartisan infrastructure package—delivered on a goal EFF has sought for years. It finally creates a way for people to remedy a serious problem: a severe lack of fiber-to-the-home connectivity. Fiber optics lie at the core...
Shining a Light on Black Box Technology Used to Send People to Jail: 2021 Year in Review
If you're accused of a crime based on an algorithm's analysis of the evidence, you should have a right to refute the assumptions, methods, and programming of that algorithm. Building on previous wins, EFF and its allies turned the tide this year on the use of these secret programs in...
2021 Year In Review: Sex Online
Students Are Learning To Resist Surveillance: Year in Review 2021
It’s been a tough year for students - but a good one for resistance. As schools have shuffled students from in-person education to at-home learning and testing, then back again, the lines between “school” and “home” have been blurred. This has made it increasingly difficult for students to protect their...


