Senators Express Privacy Concerns Over Proctoring Apps
Last week, five Senators joined the chorus of privacy advocates, students, and teachers expressing concern over surveillance proctoring apps being used to watch students remotely during exams. “You must be able to demonstrate that you are respecting students’ privacy,” the Senators write–and so far, that...
EFF at 30: Saving Encryption, with Technologist Bruce Schneier
Publisher or Platform? It Doesn't Matter.
“You have to choose: are you a platform or a publisher?”It’s the question that makes us pull out our hair and roll our eyes. It’s the question that makes us want to shout from the rooftops “IT DOESN’T MATTER. YOU DON’T HAVE TO CHOOSE”We’ll say it plainly here: there is...
Section 230 is Good, Actually
Even though it’s only 26 words long, Section 230 doesn’t say what many think it does. So we’ve decided to take up a few kilobytes of the Internet to explain what, exactly, people are getting wrong about the primary law that defends the Internet.Section 230 (47 U.S.C. § 230) is...
Law Enforcement Purchasing Commercially-Available Geolocation Data is Unconstitutional
Update (June 13, 2023): This post has been updated to reflect additional information provided by Muslim Pro. Its full statement can be accessed via its website.Many of the smartphone apps people use every day are collecting data on their users and, in order to make money, many of...
EFF Condemns Egypt's Latest Crackdown
We are quickly approaching the tenth anniversary of the Egyptian revolution, a powerfully hopeful time in history when—despite all odds—Egyptians rose up against an entrenched dictatorship and shook it from power, with the assistance of new technologies. Though the role of social media has been hotly debated and often overplayed,...
ICANN Can Stand Against Censorship (And Avoid Another .ORG Debacle) by Keeping Content Regulation and Other Dangerous Policies Out of Its Registry Contracts
The Internet’s domain name system is not the place to police speech. ICANN, the organization that regulates that system, is legally bound not to act as the Internet’s speech police, but its legal commitments are riddled with exceptions, and aspiring censors have already used those exceptions in harmful ways. This...
Video Analytics User Manuals Are a Guide to Dystopia
A few years ago, when you saw a security camera, you may have thought that the video feed went to a VCR somewhere in a back office that could only be accessed when a crime occurs. Or maybe you imagined a sleepy guard who only paid half-attention, and only when...
Elections Are Partisan Affairs. Election Security Isn't.
An Open Letter on Election SecurityVoting is the cornerstone of our democracy. And since computers are deeply involved in all segments of voting at this point, computer security is vital to the protection of this fundamental right. Everyone needs to be able to trust that the critical infrastructure systems we...
Don’t Blame Section 230 for Big Tech’s Failures. Blame Big Tech.
Next time you hear someone blame Section 230 for a problem with social media platforms, ask yourself two questions: first, was this problem actually caused by Section 230? Second, would weakening Section 230 solve the problem? Politicians and commentators on both sides of the aisle frequently blame Section 230 for...
