Top Features
The more police departments rely on technology to dictate where to focus efforts and who to be suspicious of, the more harm those departments will cause to vulnerable communities. That’s why police departments should be banned from using supposedly data-informed algorithms to inform which communities, and even which people, should receive the lion’s share of policing and criminalization.
We filed a friend-of-the-court brief—primarily written by the First Amendment Clinic at the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law—in support of a TikTok employee who is challenging President Donald Trump’s ban on TikTok and was seeking a temporary restraining order. The employee contends that Trump's executive order infringes the Fifth Amendment rights of TikTok's U.S.-based employees. Our brief, which is joined by two prominent TikTok users, urges the court to consider the First Amendment rights of millions of TikTok users when it evaluates the plaintiff’s claims.
EFF Updates
EFF has joined together with the Center for Democracy and Technology, the ACLU, Wikimedia Foundation, and 23 other organizations to tell Senators to oppose the harmful EARN IT Act. This bill would threaten free expression, harm innovation, and jeopardize encryption. We’ve got to stop it.
Every week EFF receives emails from people wondering if their Homeowner’s Association or Neighborhood Association is making a smart choice by installing automated license plate readers. Local groups often turn to license plate readers thinking that they will protect their community from crime. But the truth is, these cameras–which record every license plate coming in and out of the neighborhood–may create more problems than they solve.
While many are staying at home and escaping into virtual worlds, it's natural to discuss what's going on in the physical world. But Nintendo is shutting down those conversations with its latest Switch system update (Sep. 14, 2020) by adding new terms like COVID, coronavirus and ACAB to its censorship list for usernames, in-game messages, and search terms for in-game custom designs (but not the designs themselves). While we understand the urge to prevent abuse and misinformation about COVID-19, censoring certain strings of characters is a blunderbuss approach unlikely to substantially improve the conversation.
ETICAS Foundation’s second ¿Quien Defiende Tus Datos? (Who Defends Your Data?) report on data privacy practices in Spain shows how Spain’s leading Internet and mobile app providers are making progress in being clear about how users' personal data is being protected. But the good news for most of the companies pretty much stops there. All but the largest Internet providers in Spain are seriously lagging when it comes to transparency around government demands for user data, according to the Eticas report.
As law enforcement and government surveillance technology becomes more and more advanced, it has also become harder for everyday people to avoid. Law enforcement agencies all over the United States are using body-worn cameras, automated license plate readers, drones, and much more—all of which threat people's right to privacy. EFF has three interactive tools that help you learn about the new technologies being deployed around the United States and how they impact you: the Atlas of Surveillance, Spot the Surveillance, and Who Has Your Face?
Announcements
Every year, EFF honors leaders on the electronic frontier who are extending freedom and innovation in the realm of information technology. With keynote speaker Cyrus Farivar, join us as we honor AI bias researchers Joy Buolamwini, Dr. Timnit Gebru, and Deborah Raji; sex worker activist & tech policy and content moderation researcher Danielle Blunt; and the collective work of the Open Technology Fund Community. Mark your calendars for October 15th, with a musical introduction at 4:30, and the ceremony from 5:30-7:00 pm PDT!
MiniLinks
Check out our first two posts on the proposed ban of TikTok and WeChat.
You know you’ve created an Orwellian nightmare when officials from the NSA think you’ve gone too far.
15-16 million K-12 students in California do not have access to high speed Internet at home. The pandemic is throwing into sharp relief the disparities of the digital divide.
Using facial recognition, a technology highly prone to errors, police in Detroit misidentified and arrested Michael Oliver for a crime he didn’t commit.
Section 230 is the foundation for an Internet where people can quickly share their thoughts and content by limiting the liability of platforms for what their users post.
“The Paris-based Conseil d’Etat ruled that drones with cameras can no longer be used until the concerns are addressed, either via a privacy-friendly law or by equipping the drones with technology that makes it impossible to identify the people filmed.”
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