Stupid Patent of the MonthContact tracing is critical for limiting the spread of a contagion like COVID-19, but that doesn’t mean it’s inventive to compare people’s locations using their smartphones. Rather, it’s all the more important to protect the basic methods of public health from bogus patent claims.The CDC ...

The City of Oakland, California, has once again raised the bar on community control of police surveillance. Last week, Oakland's City Council voted unanimously to strengthen the city's already groundbreaking Surveillance and Community Safety Ordinance. The latest amendment, which immediately went into effect, adds prohibitions on Oakland's Police...

Government and private use of face recognition technology each present a wealth of concerns. Privacy, safety, and amplification of carceral bias are just some of the reasons why we must ban government use.But what about private use? It also can exacerbate injustice, including its use by police contractors, retail...

On Thursday, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency finalized its Fair Access to Financial Services rule, which will prevent banks from refusing to serve entire classes of customers that they find politically or morally unsavory. The rule is a huge win for civil liberties, and for the...

Imagine this scenario: You’re driving home. Police pull you over, allegedly for a traffic violation. After you provide your license and registration, the officer catches you off guard by asking: “Since you’ve got nothing to hide, you don’t mind unlocking your phone for me, do you?” Of course, you don’t...

WhatsApp users have recently started seeing a new pop-up screen requiring them to agree to its new terms and privacy policy in order to keep using the app. At first users were required to agree by February 8th, but after widespread controversy WhatsApp has announced it will delay...

Our Fourth Amendment rights are under attack in the digital age, and EFF is proud to announce that human rights attorney and racial justice activist Jumana Musa has joined our advisory board, bringing great expertise to our fight defending users’ privacy rights.Musa is Director of the Fourth Amendment Center at...

After last week’s violent attack on the Capitol, law enforcement is working overtime to identify the perpetrators. This is critical to accountability for the attempted insurrection. Law enforcement has many, many tools at their disposal to do this, especially given the very public nature of most of the...

Last week, following riots that saw supporters of President Trump breach and sack parts of the Capitol building, Facebook and Twitter made the decision to give the president the boot. That was notable enough, given that both companies had previously treated the president, like other political leaders, as largely...

The rollout of fiber broadband will never make it to many communities in the US. That’s because large, national ISPs are currently laying fiber primarily focused on high-income users to the detriment of the rest of their users. The absence of regulators has created a situation where wealthy end users...