The Fate of Text and Data Mining in the European Copyright Overhaul
The current European Digital Single Market copyright negotiations involve more than just the terrible upload filter and link tax proposals that have caused so much concern—and not all of the other provisions under negotiation are harmful. We haven't said much about the text and data mining provisions that...
Defenders of Copyright Troll Victims Urge Congress to Reject the "Small Claims" Bill
Oakland Should Ensure Community Control of Surveillance Technology
Axon’s Ethics Board Must Keep the Company in Check
EFF, together with 41 national, state, and local civil rights and civil liberties groups, sent a letter today urging the ethics board of police technology and weapons developer Axon to hold the company accountable to the communities its products impact—and to itself. Axon, based in Scottsdale, Arizona, is responsible for...
Facebook Inches Toward More Transparency and Accountability
Facebook took a step toward greater accountability this week, expanding the text of its community standards and announcing the rollout of a new system of appeals. Digital rights advocates have been pushing the company to be more transparent for nearly a decade, and many welcomed the announcements as...
Platform Censorship Won't Fix the Internet
The House Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing on “The Filtering Practices of Social Media Platforms” on April 26. Public attention to this issue is important: calls for online platform owners to police their members’ speech more heavily inevitably lead to legitimate voices being silenced online. Here’s a quick...
California Can Build Trust Between Police and Communities By Requiring Agencies to Publish Their Policies Online
If we as citizens are more informed of police policies and procedures, and we can easily access those materials online and study them, it’ll lead to greater accountability and better relations between our communities and the police departments that serve us. EFF supports a bill in the California legislature which...
A Tale of Two Poorly Designed Cross-Border Data Access Regimes
On Tuesday, the European Commission published two legislative proposals that could further cement an unfortunate trend towards privacy erosion in cross-border state investigations. Building on a foundation first established by the recently enacted U.S. CLOUD Act, these proposals compel tech companies and service providers to ignore critical privacy...
Supreme Court Upholds Patent Office Power to Invalidate Bad Patents
In one of the most important patent decisions in years, the Supreme Court has upheld the power of the Patent Office to review and cancel issued patents. This power to take a “second look” is important because, compared to courts, administrative avenues provide a much faster and more efficient means...
Stop Egypt’s Sweeping Ridesharing Surveillance Bill
The Egyptian government is currently debating a bill which would compel all ride-sharing companies to store any Egyptian user data within Egypt. It would also create a system that would let the authorities have real-time access to their passenger and trip information. If passed, companies such as...











