Top Features
What direction will your digital rights take under Trump and the 119th Congress? Find out about the topics EFF is watching and the effect they might have on you. Join our panel of experts on January 16, 2025 from 10:00am to 11:00am PST as they discuss surveillance, age verification, and consumer privacy. Learn how you can advocate for your digital rights and the resources available to you with our panel featuring EFF Senior Investigative Researcher Beryl Lipton, EFF Senior Staff Technologist Bill Budington, EFF Legislative Director Lee Tien, and EFF Senior Policy Analyst Joe Mullin.
If there is one thing uniting all of EFF's work in 2024, it's this: law and policy should be careful, precise, practical, and technologically neutral. Visit this page where we reflect on the past year through dozens of stories about EFF fighting for digital rights. Importantly, we did not—indeed, we cannot—do it without you. Your support keeps the lights on and ensures we are not speaking just for EFF as an organization but for our thousands of tireless members. Thank you, as always.
EFF Updates
Every year, countless emails hit our inboxes telling us that our personal information was accessed, shared, or stolen in a data breach. But some of these data breaches are more noteworthy than others, because they include novel information about us, are the result of particularly noteworthy security flaws, or are just so massive they’re impossible to ignore. That's why we're introducing the Breachies, a series of tongue-in-cheek “awards” for some of the most egregious data breaches of the year.
Each time you see a targeted ad, your personal information is exposed to thousands of advertisers and data brokers through a process called “real-time bidding” (RTB). This process does more than deliver ads—it fuels government surveillance, poses national security risks, and gives data brokers easy access to your online activity. RTB might be the most privacy-invasive surveillance system that you’ve never heard of.
Early this month, the Sixth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against the FCC, rejecting its authority to classify broadband as a Title II “telecommunications service.” In doing so, the court removed net neutrality protections for all Americans and took away the FCC’s ability to meaningfully regulate internet service providers. By ruling that broadband is an “information service” and not a “telecommunications service,” this court is saying that the ISPs that control your broadband access will continue to face little to no oversight for their actions. This is intolerable.
Facebook has a clear and disturbing track record of silencing and further marginalizing already oppressed peoples, and then being less than forthright about their content moderation policy. If Meta truly values freedom of expression, we urge it to redirect its focus to empowering historically marginalized speakers, rather than empowering only their detractors.
Which surveillance technologies are California police using? Are they buying access to your location data? If so, how much are they paying? These are basic questions the Electronic Frontier Foundation is trying to answer in a new lawsuit called Pen-Link v. County of San Joaquin Sheriff’s Office. The public has a right to know the technology that law enforcement buys with taxpayer money. This information is not a trade secret, despite what private companies try to claim.
Here’s an audio version of EFFector. We hope you enjoy it!
Announcements
EFF is excited to be back in Mesa, AZ for CactusCon! If you're attending CactusCon 13, be sure to stop by the EFF booth to chat. We're excited to say hi and chat about our work with new and returning faces!
EFF is also excited to be back in Pasadena, CA for SCaLE 22x! Stop by the EFF booth to chat with some of our team and learn about the latest news in defending digital freedom for all.
EFF is the leading nonprofit organization defending civil liberties in the digital world. Organizational memberships and event sponsorships offer your organization the opportunity to join our movement for a better technological future. To learn more, please visit eff.org/thanks.
Job Openings
Applications are now open through February 15 for the Summer 2025 Intern Class! EFF’s legal internships provide law students with a unique opportunity to develop valuable skills and real-world experience while working with a nationally-recognized public interest law firm. Legal interns learn from and assist EFF’s staff attorneys in all aspects of litigation, including legal research, factual investigation, and drafting of memoranda and briefs, while also helping with policy research, client counseling, and the development of public education materials (e.g., blog posts). EFF’s docket ranges across the technological and legal landscape, from online fair use of copyrighted materials to illegal government spying.
MiniLinks
“By leaving these incredibly insecure tracking devices on the open internet, police have not only breached public trust but created a bounty of location data for everyone who drives by which can be abused by stalkers and other criminals,” explained EFF's Cooper Quintin. “Police shouldn't be collecting this data at all unless there is an active investigation, and even then, the devices must be strictly scrutinized for security and public safety."
EFF Executive Director Cindy Cohn called out a data-sucking "smart crib" as the least private device at this year's Consumer Electronics Show. “Parents expect safety and comfort — not surveillance and privacy risks — in their children’s cribs,” she said.
EFF's Eva Galperin helped highlight the reams of data that today's vehicles vacuum up from drivers. In rental cars, this can include opt-in tracking services and other functions that vehicle owners can turn off.
EFF's Saira Hussain expressed our concerns about the troubling expansion of San Francisco's surveillance technology, including 400 automated license plate readers. “When you’re talking about 400 concentrated in a very dense location … it really starts to look like people are going to be able to be identified as they’re moving about the city,” she said.
"Shutting down communications platforms or forcing their reorganization based on concerns of foreign propaganda and anti-national manipulation is an eminently anti-democratic tactic," said EFF's David Greene, "one that the U.S. has previously condemned globally."
|
