EFF, ACLU, and 30+ Community Groups Oppose Weakening San Francisco’s Surveillance Ordinance
EFF, ACLU, and 34 other community and civil rights groups have signed onto a letter urging San Francisco’s Mayor and the Board of Supervisors not to gut the city’s landmark 2019 surveillance technology ordinance. Mayor London Breed recently introduced a proposed ballot initiative that would create massive exceptions...
We Need Answers About the CIA’s Mass Surveillance
The Central Intelligence Agency has been collecting American’s private data without any oversight or even the minimal legal safeguards that apply to the NSA and FBI, an unconstitutional affront to our civil liberties. According to a declassified report released yesterday by the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB), the...
Key Senators Have Voted For The Anti-Encryption EARN IT Act
Earlier today, the Senate Judiciary Committee voted to advance the dangerous EARN IT bill. We’re disappointed to see the committee advance this misguided bill. If enacted, EARN IT will put massive legal pressure on internet companies both large and small to stop using encryption and instead scan all user...
EFF Sends Letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee to Oppose EARN IT
On Wednesday, February 9, EFF sent a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee to strongly oppose S. 3538, the Eliminating Abusive and Rampant Neglect of Interactive Technologies Act of 2022 (EARN IT Act). EFF opposed the original and amended versions of this bill in the previous Congress, and our...
Robots Have No Place Filtering Creative Content, EFF Tells U.S. Copyright Office
Software robots should not be deciding whether your creative content, whether written words, videos, photos, or music, ought to be pulled off the internet.That’s what we told the U.S. Copyright office in comments we filed February 8 arguing against requiring service providers to embrace “standard technical measures” to address...
Activists, Writers, and Security Experts All Oppose the EARN IT Act
Along with 60 other human rights, civil rights and open Internet organizations, EFF sent a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday, February 9 outlining our concerns with the Eliminating Abusive and Rampant Neglect of Interactive Technologies Act of 2022 (EARN IT, S.3538).As we wrote when the...
Victory! ID.me to Drop Facial Recognition Requirement for Government Services
First, the Internal Revenue Service reversed course from its recent announcement that it was partnering with ID.me, a third-party identity verification service, to use facial recognition for verification of users managing many aspects of their taxes online. Now, ID.me—which provides identity verification services for dozens of government agencies—says...
What the Duck? Why an EU Proposal to Require "QWACs" Will Hurt Internet Security
It's become easier over the years for websites to improve their security, thanks to tools that allow more people to automate and easily set-up secure measures for web applications and the services they provide. A proposed amendment to Article 45 in the EU’s Digital Identity Framework...
EFF Joins Activists And Human Rights Groups To Reject Attacks on Encryption
Encryption is under attack. In liberal democracies, elected leaders are giving lip service to our right to privacy—while seeking to create a system where they can scan any data we send over the internet. Earlier this month, the U.K. Home Office spent public money on a high-priced ad campaign...
Send Surveillance Robot Dogs to the Pound, Not the Border
On February 1, 2022, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Science and Technology Directorate, the official research and development arm of the agency, released a cutesy press release about how robotic dogs made in collaboration with Ghost Robotics are “one step closer” to deployment on the U.S.-Mexico border. Covered...
