Human Rights and TPMs: Lessons from 22 Years of the U.S. DMCA
In 1998, Bill Clinton signed the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), a sweeping overhaul of U.S. copyright law notionally designed to update the system for the digital era. Though the DMCA contains many controversial sections, one of the most pernicious and problematic elements of the law is Section 1201,...
Portland’s Fight Against Face Surveillance
This Wednesday, the Portland City Council will hear from residents, businesses, and civil society as they consider banning
government use of face recognition technology within the city.
Over 150 Portland-area business owners, technologists, workers, and residents have signed our
About Face petition calling...
Exposure Notification Technology is Ready for Its Closeup
Since this COVID-19 crisis began people have looked to technology to assist in contact tracing and notification. Technology will never be a silver bullet to solve a deeply human crisis, even if it might assist. No app will work absent widespread testing with human follow up. Smartphones are not...
EFF Responds to EU Commission on the Digital Services Act: Put Users Back in Control
The European Union is currently preparing for a significant overhaul of its core platform regulation, the e-Commerce Directive. Earlier this year the European Commission, the EU’s executive, pledged to reshape Europe’s digital future and to propose an entire package of new rules, the Digital Services Act (DSA)....
Technology Can’t Predict Crime, It Can Only Weaponize Proximity to Policing
Special thanks to Yael Grauer for additional writing and research.In June 2020, Santa Cruz, California became the first city in the United States to ban municipal use of predictive policing, a method of deploying law enforcement resources according to data-driven analytics that supposedly are able to predict perpetrators, victims, or...
COVID-19 Tracking Technology Will Not Save Us
Technology may be part of the solution to stopping the spread of COVID-19, but apps alone will not save us. As more states develop COVID exposure notification apps, institutions and the people they serve should remain skeptical and remember the bigger picture. This is still experimental, unproven...
Pass the Payment Choice Act
EFF Pilots an Audio Version of EFFector
Today, we are launching an audio version of our monthly-ish newsletter EFFector to give you a new way to learn about the latest in online freedom, and offer greater accessibility to anyone who is visually impaired or would just like to listen!Listen Now!Surveillance Shouldn’t Be a Prerequisite for an...
Star Trek and CBS: An Enterprising Takedown
For years, studios and networks have depended on San Diego Comic-Con to get fans excited about their upcoming shows and movies. Though the format shifted to an online format this year, that didn’t stop the likes of Marvel, CBS, and Cartoon Network from showing up and streaming their events online....
Cryptographer and Entrepreneur Jon Callas Joins EFF as Technology Projects Director
Some of the most important work we do at EFF is build technologies to protect users’ privacy and security, and give developers tools to make the entire Internet ecosystem more safe and secure. Every day, EFF’s talented and dedicated computer scientists and engineers are creating and making improvements to...









