Privacy

An expanding category of software, apps, and devices is normalizing cradle-to-grave surveillance in more and more aspects of everyday life. At EFF we call them “disciplinary technologies.” They typically show up in the areas of life where surveillance is most accepted and where power imbalances are the norm: in our workplaces, our schools, and in our homes.At work, employee-monitoring “bossware” puts workers’ privacy and security at risk with invasive time-tracking and “productivity” features that go far beyond what is necessary and proportionate to manage a workforce. At school, programs like remote proctoring and social media monitoring follow students home and…

All too often, police and other government agencies unleash invasive surveillance technologies on the streets of our communities, based on the unilateral and secret decisions of agency executives, after hearing from no one except corporate sales agents. This spy tech causes false arrests, disparately burdens BIPOC and immigrants, invades our privacy, and deters our free speech. Many communities have found Community Control of Police Surveillance (CCOPS) laws to be an effective step on the path to systemic change. CCOPS laws empower the people of a community, through their legislators, to decide whether or not city agencies may acquire or use…

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has allowed a civil lawsuit to move forward against Snapchat, a smartphone social media app, brought by the parents of three teenage boys who died tragically in a car accident after reaching a maximum speed of 123 miles per hour. We agree with the court’s ruling, which confirmed that internet intermediaries are not immune from liability when the harm does not flow from the speech of other users. The parents argue that Snapchat was negligently designed because it incentivized users to drive at dangerous speeds by offering a “speed filter” that…

Last week, EFF filed an amicus brief in State v. Alvin Davis in California, in support of Mr. Davis’s right to inspect the source code of STRMix, the forensic DNA software used at his trial. This is the most recent in a string of cases in which EFF has argued that a defendant has the right to examine DNA analysis software. Earlier this year, the courts in two of those cases, United States v. Ellis and State v. Pickett, agreed with EFF that the defendants were entitled to the source code of TrueAllele, one of STRMix’s main competitors.  Criminal defendants…

President Joe Biden on Friday rescinded a dangerous and unconstitutional Executive Order issued by President Trump that threatened internet users’ ability to obtain truthful information online and retaliated against services that fact-checked the former president. The Executive Order called on multiple federal agencies to punish private online social media services for content moderation decisions that President Trump did not like. Biden’s rescission of the Executive Order comes after a coalition of organizations challenging the order in court called on the president to abandon the order last month. In a letter from Rock The Vote, Voto Latino, Common Cause, Free Press,…

The City of Fullerton, California has abandoned a lawsuit against two bloggers and a local website. The suit dangerously sought to expand California’s computer crime law in a way that threatened investigative reporting and everyday internet use. The city’s lawsuit against the bloggers and the website Friends For Fullerton’s Future alleged, in part, that the bloggers violated the California Comprehensive Computer Data Access and Fraud Act because they improperly accessed non-public government records on the city’s file-sharing service that it used to disclose public records. But the settlement agreement between the city and bloggers shows those allegations lacked merit and…

This morning, California Governor Gavin Newsom announced his plans for the state’s multi-billion dollar surplus and federal recovery dollars, including a massive, welcome $7 billion investment in public broadband infrastructure. It’s a plan that would give California one of the largest public broadband fiber networks in the country. The proposal now heads to the legislature to be ratified by June 15 by a simple majority. Here are the details: The Plan: California Builds Fiber Broadband Highway; Locals Build the Onramps Internet infrastructure shares many commonalities with public roads. Surface streets that crisscross downtowns and residential areas connect to highways via…

Stupid Patent of the Month Patent trolls are everyone’s problem. A study from 2019 showed that 32% of patent troll lawsuits are directed at small and medium-sized businesses. We told the stories of some of those small businesses in our Saved by Alice project. But some patent trolls go even further. Hawk Technology LLC doesn’t just sue small businesses (although it does do that)—it has sued school districts, municipal stadiums, and non-profit hospitals. Hawk Tech has filed more than 200 federal lawsuits over the last nine years, mostly against small entities. Even after the expiration of its primary patent, RE43,462,…

Although DNA is individual to you—a “fingerprint” of your genetic code—DNA samples don’t always tell a complete story. The DNA samples used in criminal prosecutions are generally of low quality, making them particularly complicated to analyze. They are not very concentrated, not very complete, or are a mixture of multiple individual’s DNA—and often, all of these conditions are true. If a DNA sample is like a fingerprint, analyzing mixed DNA samples in criminal prosecutions can often be like attempting to isolate a single person’s print from a doorknob of a public building after hundreds of people have touched it. Despite…

With the attack on Colonial Pipeline by a ransomware group causing panic buying and shortages of gasoline on the US East Coast, many are left with more questions than answers to what exactly is going on. We have provided a short FAQ to the most common technical questions that are being raised, in an effort to shine light on some of what we already know. What is Ransomware? What is the Ransomware Industry? What is DarkSide? What exactly happened last Friday? Why did they target Colonial Pipeline? What can I do to defend myself against ransomware? What is Ransomware? Ransomware…