In California, as in many states, the public has a right to request public records—government documents that reveal information such as what decisions public officials make, what actions they take, and how they spend our money. But what happens when a government agency starts deleting records faster than a member...

Future Tense Fiction, a joint project of ASU’s Center for Science and the Imagination and Slate, has just published Affordances, a new science fiction story by EFF Special Advisor Cory Doctorow. It's a tale of algorithmic bias, facial recognition, and technological self-determination that touches on many of EFF’s...

Unless Congress stops it, foreign police will soon be able to collect and search data on the servers of U.S. Internet companies. They’ll be able to do it without a probable cause warrant, or any oversight from a U.S. judge. This is all happening because of a new law enforcement...

Recent attacks on encryption have diverged. On the one hand, we’ve seen Attorney General William Barr call for “lawful access” to encrypted communications, using arguments that have barely changed since the 1990’s. But we’ve also seen suggestions from a different set of actors for more purportedly “reasonable” interventions,...

ESET researchers recently discovered a false “trojanized” version of Tor Browser that collectively stole $40,000 USD in Bitcoin.This does not mean that Tor or Tor Browser itself is compromised in any way. It only means that attackers found a new, insidious way to create and distribute a fake...

EFF and a coalition of privacy advocates recently asked the sponsor of a new California ballot initiative to strengthen its provisions on consumer data privacy.The California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018 (CCPA) created new ways for the state’s residents to protect themselves from corporations that invade their privacy...

Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg was called back to Capitol Hill to speak about the company’s impact on the financial and housing sectors—particularly in light of its proposal to launch a cryptocurrency wallet, Calibra, and its involvement in the creation of the Libra cryptocurrency.We’ve criticized Facebook on many...

EFF legal intern Samantha Hamilton co-wrote this blog postNickelback never asked to become a meme. And yet, after the Internet decided it hated the Canadian alternative rock band and due to the lead singer’s unique voice, users have shared their image millions of times. But their record label decided to...

EasyTracGPS is a family-owned business that provides GPS tracking solutions to commercial shipping fleets. Recently, EasyTracGPS faced a litigation threat from Inventergy LBS, LLC, which accused it of infringing U.S. Patent No. 8,760,286. That patent supposedly claims a “[s]ystem and method for communication with a tracking device,” but like...

Internet Lab, the Brazilian independent research center, has published their fourth annual report of “Quem Defende Seus Dados?" (“Who defends your data?"), comparing policies of their local Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and how they treat users’ data after receiving government requests. Vivo (Telefónica) still takes the lead, but...