California Community Leaders Call for Urgent Action on Broadband Access—Add Your Organization to the List
More than fifty California organizations, businesses, and public officials—including the AARP of California, the San Francisco Tech Council, the California Center for Rural Policy, the Khan Academy, and a number of California cities and counties—join Common Sense Kids Action and EFF in urging Governor Gavin Newsom to call the...
Bust 'Em All: Let's De-Monopolize Tech, Telecoms AND Entertainment
The early 1980s were a period of tremendous foment and excitement for tech. In the four years between 1980 and 1984, Americans met:The Vic-20 (1980);The Commodore 64 (1981);The IBM PC (1982); andThe PC-compatible ROM (1984)But no matter how exciting things were in Silicon Valley during those years, even more...
Introducing “YAYA”, a New Threat Hunting Tool From EFF Threat Lab
At the EFF Threat Lab we spend a lot of time hunting for malware that targets vulnerable populations, but we also spend time trying to classify malware samples that we have come across. One of the tools we use for this is YARA. YARA is described as “The Pattern...
The Government’s Antitrust Suit Against Google: Go Big and Do It Right
U.S. antitrust enforcers are reported to be crafting a lawsuit against Google (and its parent company, Alphabet). The Department of Justice and a large coalition of state attorneys general are meeting this week and could file suit very soon. While it will reportedly focus on Google’s dominance in online...
Students Are Pushing Back Against Proctoring Surveillance Apps
Special thanks to legal intern Tracy Zhang, who was lead author of this post.Privacy groups aren’t the only ones raising the alarm about the dangers of invasive proctoring apps. Through dozens of petitions across the country, and the globe, students too are pushing school administrators and teachers to consider...
How Police Fund Surveillance Technology is Part of the Problem
Law enforcement agencies at the federal, state, and local level are spending hundreds of millions of dollars a year on surveillance technology in order to track, locate, watch, and listen to people in the United States, often targeting dissidents, immigrants, and people of color. EFF has written tirelessly about the...
The Time Has Come to End the PACER Paywall
In a nation ruled by law, access to public court records is essential to democratic accountability. Thanks to the Internet and other technological innovations, that access should be broader and easier than ever. The PACER (Public Access to Court Electronic Records) system could and should play a crucial role in...
EFF, CDT Sue Government To Obtain Records About Federal Agencies Pulling Advertising From Platforms
Washington, D.C.—The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and the Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT) today filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the government to obtain records showing whether federal agencies have cut their advertising on social media as part of President Trump’s broad attack on...
Exposing Your Face Isn't a More Hygienic Way to Pay
A company called PopID has created an identity-management system that uses face recognition. Their first use case is as a system for in-store, point of sale payments using face recognition as authorization for payment.They are promoting it as a tool for restaurants, claiming that it is pandemic-friendly because...
A Look-Back and Ahead on Data Protection in Latin America and Spain
We're proud to announce a new updated version of The State of Communications Privacy Laws in eight Latin American countries and Spain. For over a year, EFF has worked with partner organizations to develop detailed questions and answers (FAQs) around communications privacy laws. Our work builds upon previous and...
