EFFector Volume 38, Issue 13

🚫 Don't Let Congress Age-Gate the Internet

Welcome to an all-new EFFector, your regular digest on everything digital rights from the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

In our 848th issue: A victory for location privacy in the Supreme Court, disturbing developments in the militarization of domestic drones, and a sprawling Congressional bill to control what we can see and say online.

When you lose your rights online, you lose them in real life. Become an EFF member today!

Featured Story: The House Passed The KIDS Act—The Senate Should Reject It

Recently, the House voted on the KIDS Act, a disjointed package of legislation that seeks to control Americans’ web browsing and private messaging. The package combines a revised version of the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA), with several other internet bills, study bills, reporting requirements, and new regulations. Different parts of the bill pressure online services to impose different age-gating schemes, using different standards. EFF opposed this bill, along with many of our members and supporters.

The bill passed the House, 267-117. It now heads to the Senate, where its fate remains uncertain. But this fight is not over. Even if you took our earlier action to contact the House, we need you to reach out to your Senators today.

Many of the bills in the KIDS Act share the same premise: that children and teenagers should have different experiences online than adults. In practice, that requires websites and apps to determine who is under 18—and who isn’t. That’s where the problems with the KIDS Act start.

There is no way to determine a user’s age online that is both privacy protective and accurate. Some age verification processes may rely on collecting government-issued ID, while others may use biometric scans. Others will use algorithms to guess a user’s age based on facial images or online behavior. But no matter the method, every system demands users hand over sensitive personal information that links their offline identity to their online activity. And then, once that valuable data is collected, it can be leaked, hacked, or misused. In fact, we’ve already seen several breaches of age verification providers.

There is a better way to protect young people online. Instead of encouraging a complicated system of age checks, more monitoring, and more restrictions on access to information, Congress could finally pass a strong, comprehensive privacy law that benefits all users. A great place to start would be to ban behavioral advertising that tracks us across the web—again, for users of all ages.

READ MORE…

‌EFF Updates

📍 LOCATION PRIVACY: In a victory for privacy, the Supreme Court found that the Constitution protects people's location data. You have an expectation of privacy in location data that reveals your movements in the physical world, and even short-term surveillance of these movements is a search subject to the Fourth Amendment, the Court ruled in Chatrie v. Uni

ted States last month. The case involved geofence warrants, a form of dragnet surveillance police have used to vacuum up location data from electronic devices of people who happen to be in the vicinity of a crime. EFF, which co-filed an amicus brief in the case, looks forward to citing Chatrie to press future courts to recognize broad Fourth Amendment protections for user data.

🖨 3D PRINTER SURVEILLANCE: Ignoring EFF’s warnings about the dangers and impossibility of implementing a new mandate for 3D print surveillance software, the California State Assembly has signed off on legislation to do just that. A printer surveillance system won’t work for its intended purpose and will only harm law-abiding users. We must renew our call on legislators to drop this bill as it heads to the state senate, and protect the tools of creators in the state.

🤖 ARMED POLICE DRONES: If towns, cities, states, or the federal government want to act to rein in the emergence of armed police drones and robots, we have precious little time. In the absence of substantial regulation around when and how domestic law enforcement in the United States can deploy force using drones, the companies that market technology to law enforcement have been moving. This is not science fiction. It’s not premature. And it’s past time that concerned people take notice.

💿 DIGITAL "OWNERSHIP": In the latest attack on our diminishing rights to access and engage with culture digitally, Playstation recently decided to kill physical game discs. We’ve seen the same playbook used in the move to digital distribution of film, TV, and music: draw in customers with the convenience of a digital download, then limit physical access and move the goalpost on what it actually means to “own” a piece of media. The end goal is to turn the customer into a renter, stuck making regular subscription payments for access. Rent-seeking corporations and negligent lawmakers share the blame—and they can do better.

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