Clearview’s Faceprinting is Not Sheltered from Biometric Privacy Litigation by the First Amendment
Clearview AI extracts faceprints from billions of people, without their consent, and uses these faceprints to offer a service to law enforcement agencies seeking to identify suspects in photos. Following an exposé by the New York Times this past January, Clearview faces more than ten lawsuits, including ...
RIAA Abuses DMCA to Take Down Popular Tool for Downloading Online Videos
"youtube-dl" is a popular free software tool for downloading videos from YouTube and other user-uploaded video platforms. GitHub recently took down youtube-dl’s code repository at the behest of the Recording Industry Association of America, potentially stopping many thousands of users, and other programs and services, that rely on it.On...
Ink-Stained Wretches: The Battle for the Soul of Digital Freedom Taking Place Inside Your Printer
Since its founding in the 1930s, Hewlett-Packard has been synonymous with innovation, and many's the engineer who had cause to praise its workhorse oscillators, minicomputers, servers, and PCs. But since the turn of this century, the company's changed its name to HP and its focus to sleazy ways to part...
How to Identify Visible (and Invisible) Surveillance at Protests
In an Uncertain World, EFF Will Always Support the Users
EFF turned thirty this year. In our three decades of work, we’ve seen huge shifts in the way technology and the Internet help, harm, and otherwise influence the lives of nearly everyone on the planet—and that includes its enormous influence on electoral politics. Our thirty-year view has allowed us the...
Turkey Doubles Down on Violations of Digital Privacy and Free Expression
Turkey's recent history is rife with human rights-stifling legislation and practices. The Internet Law, its amendments, and the recent decision of Turkey’s regulator (BTK) further cemented that trend. The Internet Law and amendments require large platforms to appoint a local representative, localize their data, and speed...
Police Will Pilot a Program to Live-Stream Amazon Ring Cameras
Updated as of 11/5/2020: This blog post has been updated with a statement from Amazon in regards to the pilot program described in the Jackson Free Press. You can find their response at the bottom of the page. This is not a drill. Red alert: The police surveillance...
No Police Body Cams Without Strict Safeguards
EFF opposes police Body Worn Cameras (BWCs), unless they come with strict safeguards to ensure they actually promote officer accountability without surveilling the public. Police already have too many surveillance technologies, and deploy them all too frequently against people of color and protesters. We have taken this...
The Cost of the “New Way to Message on Instagram”
If you are on Instagram, you have been probably bombarded by Instagram Stories and notifications about new features like emojis, chat themes, selfie stickers, and “cross-platform messaging” that will allow you to exchange direct messages with, and search for, friends who are on Facebook. But the...
The Github youtube-dl Takedown Isn't Just a Problem of American Law
The video downloading utility youtube-dl, like other large open source projects, accepts contributions from all around the globe. It is used practically wherever there's an Internet connection. It's especially shocking, therefore, when what looks like a domestic legal spat–involving a take-down demand written by lawyers representing the Recording Industry...










