Community Activists Reach Settlement With Marin County Sheriff for Unlawfully Sharing Drivers’ Locations with Out-Of-State and Federal Agencies

SAN FRANCISCO—Community activists in Northern California today announced a settlement in their lawsuit against the County of Marin and Marin County Sheriff Robert Doyle, whose office illegally made the license plate and location information of local drivers, captured by a network of surveillance cameras, available to hundreds of federal...

Hearing Wednesday: EFF Testifies Against SFPD for Violating Transparency Laws

SAN FRANCISCO – On Wednesday, June 1, at 5 p.m. PT, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) will testify against the San Francisco Police Department (SFPD) at the city’s Sunshine Ordinance Task Force meeting. EFF filed a complaint against the SFPD for withholding records about a controversial investigation involving the use...

EFF Opposes Anti-Fiber, Anti-Affordability Legislation in California That Will Raise Prices on Middle Income Users

SACRAMENTO, CA – The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) opposes legislation sponsored by AT&T, AB 2749 (Quirk-Silva), that would undermine California’s historic broadband infrastructure law signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom last July.The bill would amend the newly created grant program for funding broadband access in unserved areas by prohibiting the...

EFF to Supreme Court: Put Texas Social Media Law Back on Hold

WASHINGTON, D.C.—The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) today urged the U.S. Supreme Court to halt enforcement of Texas’ constitutionally questionable social media law, which allows the state to dictate what speech platforms must publish and may lead to more, not less, censorship of user expression as platforms face a storm of...

Let's Encrypt Wins Levchin Prize For Work On Internet Security

SAN FRANCISCO—Let’s Encrypt—a project of the nonprofit Internet Security Research Group (ISRG), which is supported by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and other sponsors—won the prestigious international Levchin Prize for significant contributions to real-world cryptography.Let’s Encrypt is part of the effort to encrypt the entire internet as a...

Civil Liberties Groups Urge Social Media Platforms to Better Protect Free Flow of Information in Crisis Zones

SAN FRANCISCO—Whether in Ukraine or in other crisis zones around the globe, social media platforms have a duty to ensure that people have access to the free flow of life-saving information, according to a statement issued today by 31 international human rights and civil liberties organizations, including the Electronic...

Public.Resource.Org Can Keep Freeing the Law: Court Allows Posting Public Laws And Regulations Online

SAN FRANCISCO—As part of its ongoing work to ensure that people can know and understand the laws they live under, Public.Resource.org, a nonprofit organization, on Thursday vindicated its ability to publicly post important laws online in standard formats, free of copy protections and cumbersome user interfaces.The win for Public...

EFF Files FOIA Lawsuit Against DHS to Shed Light on Vetting Program to Collect and Data Mine Immigrants' Social Media

SAN FRANCISCO—The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) today filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for records about a multi-million dollar, secretive program that surveils immigrants and other foreign visitors’ speech on social media.DHS and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) use the Visa...

Cybersecurity Experts Urge EU Lawmakers to Fix Website Authentication Proposal That Puts Internet Users’ Security and Privacy at Risk

SAN FRANCISCO—Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) technologists, along with 36 of the world’s top cybersecurity experts, today urged European lawmakers to reject proposed changes to European Union (EU) regulations for securing electronic payments and other online transactions that will dramatically weaken web security and expose internet users to increased risk of...

EFF Launches Tracking Global Online Censorship Project to Shine Light on How Content Moderation Affects Freedom of Expression Around the World

San Francisco—The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) today launched Tracking Global Online Censorship, a website project that provides comprehensive, in-depth information about how and why social media platforms remove users’ posts, how users can appeal these take down decisions, and how the practice affects freedom of expression across the globe.Tracking...

EFF Asks Appeals Court to Rule DMCA Anti-Circumvention Provisions Violate First Amendment

Washington D.C.—The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) asked a federal appeals court to block enforcement of onerous copyright rules that violate the First Amendment and criminalize certain speech about technology, preventing researchers, tech innovators, filmmakers, educators, and others from creating and sharing their work.EFF, with co-counsel Wilson Sonsini Goodrich &...

Livestreamed Hearing Moved to Jan. 21: EFF Will Ask Court to Issue Judgment Against SFPD for Illegally Spying on Protesters Marching in Support of Black Lives

Update: The hearing has been moved to January 21.San Francisco—On Friday, Jan. 21, at 9:30 am, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and the ACLU of Northern California will ask a California state court to find that the San Francisco Police Department (SFPD) violated city law when it used a network...

“Worst in Show Awards” Livestreams Friday: EFF’s Cindy Cohn and Cory Doctorow Will Unveil Most Privacy-Defective, Least Secure Consumer Tech Products at CES

Las Vegas—On Friday, January 7, at 9:30 am PT, Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) Executive Director Cindy Cohn and EFF Special Advisor and sci-fi author Cory Doctorow will present the creepiest, most privacy-invasive, and unsecure consumer tech devices debuting at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES).EFF, in partnership with iFixit, USPIRG,...

مؤسسة الجبهة الإلكترونية نيابة عن ناشطة حقوقية سعودية، تقاضي صانع برامج التجسس دارك ماتر لانتهاك قوانين مكافحة القرصنة الأمريكية والقوانين الدولية لحقوق الإنسان

English version بورتلاند، أوريغون - رفعت مؤسسة الجبهة الإلكترونية (EFF) دعوى قضائية اليوم نيابة عن الناشطة السعودية البارزة في مجال حقوق الإنسان لجين الهذلول ضد شركة دارك ماتر لبرامج التجسس وثلاثة من مديريها التنفيذيين السابقين بتهمة اختراق جهاز آيفون الخاص بها بشكل سري غير قانوني لتتبع اتصالاتها وأماكن وجودها.الهذلول...

Laptop with broken screen

Saudi Human Rights Activist, Represented by EFF, Sues Spyware Maker DarkMatter For Violating U.S. Anti-Hacking and International Human Rights Laws

EFF filed a lawsuit today on behalf of prominent Saudi human rights activist Loujain AlHathloul against spying software maker DarkMatter Group and three of its former executives for illegally hacking her iPhone to secretly track her communications and whereabouts.

EFF, Partners Launch New Edition of Santa Clara Principles, Adding Standards Aimed at Governments and Expanding Appeal Guidelines

San Francisco—The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and a coalition of civil society organizations and academics today released the second edition of the Santa Clara Principles on Transparency and Accountability In Content Moderation, adding standards directed at government and state actors to beef up due process and expanding guidelines for...

Livestreamed Hearing Monday: EFF Urges Appeals Court to Allow Public Access to Documents in Patent Troll Litigation

WASHINGTON, D.C.— On Monday, December 6, at 10 am ET, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), standing up for public access to courts and transparency in patent litigation, will urge a panel of judges to unseal documents that a notorious patent troll is trying to hide. At a federal appeals court...

EFF’s New Series of How to Fix the Internet Podcast Tackles Toughest Issues in Tech

San Francisco—Troubled when Twitter takes down posts of people or organizations you follow? Concerned about protecting yourself and your community from surveillance? Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has got you, with the launch today of the first season of the How to Fix the Internet podcast, featuring conversations that can...

EFF to Supreme Court: Warrantless 24-Hour Video Surveillance Outside Homes Violates Fourth Amendment

Washington, D.C.—The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) today urged the Supreme Court today to review and reverse a lower court decision in United States v. Tuggle finding that police didn’t need a warrant to secretly record all activity in front of someone’s home 24 hours a day, for a...

Open Access Fiber Networks Will Bring Much-Needed High-Speed Internet Service and Competition to Communities More Efficiently and Economically: Report

San Francisco—Public investments in open access fiber networks, instead of more subsidies for broadband carriers, will bring high-speed internet on a more cost-efficient basis to millions of Americans and create an infrastructure that can handle internet growth for decades, according to a new report.Commissioned by EFF, “Wholesale Fiber is...

California Activists Sue Marin County Sheriff for Illegally Sharing Drivers’ License Plate Data With ICE, CBP and Other Out-of-State Agencies

San Francisco—Community activists in Northern California today sued Marin County Sheriff Robert Doyle for illegally sharing millions of local drivers’ license plates and location data, captured by a network of cameras his office uses, with hundreds of federal and out-of-state agencies—a practice that violates two California laws, endangers the...

Coalition Against Stalkerware Named J.D. Falk Award Winner for Raising Awareness About and Helping Victims of Malicious Spying Apps

San Francisco—The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is thrilled to announce that the Coalition Against Stalkerware, co-founded by Cybersecurity Director Eva Galperin and leading antivirus companies and victim support groups, has received the J.D. Falk Award for its work raising awareness, increasing detection, and combating the spread of malware used for...

Livestream Panel Discussion Tuesday: EFF, Encryption Users Will Discuss Consequences of Apple’s Planned Scanning Tool, Suggest Changes

San Francisco—On Tuesday, October 12, at 8 am PT, EFF Senior Staff Technologist Erica Portnoy and representatives from more than 10 human, digital, and children’s rights organizations will hold a livestreamed panel discussion about the ramifications of Apple’s plans to add scanning tools to its devices on people...

Virtual Workshop Tuesday: EFF’s Mitch Stoltz Will Discuss Free Software Movement On Panel Examining Ethics and Open Source Software Licensing

San Francisco—On Tuesday, October 12, at 12 pm PT, EFF Senior Staff Attorney Mitch Stoltz will speak at an online workshop convened by the UCLA Institute for Technology, Law & Policy to explore the future of open source software. Registration for this free online event is here.The possibility that...

EFF Activists To Lead Protest Demanding Apple Cancel iPhone Scanning Program and Keep Its Privacy Promises To Customers

San Francisco—Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) activists will lead a protest on Monday, September 13, at 6 pm PT, demanding Apple drop its planned iPhone surveillance software program, which will endanger the privacy and security of its customers and open a backdoor to increased surveillance around the world.Demonstrators from EFF...

Video Briefing Wednesday: EFF and Partners Will Deliver to Apple Petitions with 50,000 Signatures Demanding End to Phone Scanning Program

San Francisco—On Wednesday, September 8, at 9 am PT, internationally renowned security technologist Bruce Schneier and EFF Policy Analyst Joe Mullin will speak on a panel with digital rights activists delivering petitions with more than 50,000 signatures calling on Apple to cancel its iPhone surveillance software program. The briefing...

EFF Sues U.S. Postal Service For Records About Covert Social Media Spying Program

Washington D.C.—The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the U.S. Postal Service and its inspection agency seeking records about a covert program to secretly comb through online posts of social media users before street protests, raising concerns about chilling the privacy and...

EFF, ACLU Urge Appeals Court to Revive Challenge to Los Angeles’ Collection of Scooter Location Data

San Francisco—The Electronic Frontier Foundation and the ACLU of Northern and Southern California today asked a federal appeals court to reinstate a lawsuit they filed on behalf of electric scooter riders challenging the constitutionality of Los Angeles’ highly privacy-invasive collection of detailed trip data and real-time locations and routes...

EFF Gets $300,000 Boost from Craig Newmark Philanthropies to Protect Journalists and Fight Consumer Spyware

San Francisco – The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is proud to announce its latest grant from Craig Newmark Philanthropies: $300,000 to help protect journalists and fight consumer spyware.“This donation will help us to develop tools and training for both working journalists and student journalists, preparing them to protect themselves...

Hearing Tuesday: EFF Testifies Against SFPD for Violating Transparency Policies

San Francisco – On Tuesday, June 15, at 5:30 pm PT, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) will testify against the San Francisco Police Department (SFPD) at the city’s Sunshine Ordinance Task Force committee meeting. EFF has registered a complaint against the SFPD for withholding records about a controversial investigation involving...

Unconstitutional Florida Law Barring Platforms from Suspending Politicians Should be Blocked, EFF Tells Court

Tallahassee, Florida—The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and Protect Democracy urged a federal judge to strike down Florida’s law banning Facebook, Twitter, and other platforms from suspending political candidates’ accounts, saying it unconstitutionally interferes with the First Amendment rights of the companies and their users, and forces companies to give politicians’...

22 Rights Groups Tell PayPal and Venmo to Shape Up Policies on Account Closures

San Francisco – Nearly two dozen rights groups, including the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), have joined together to tell PayPal and its subsidiary Venmo to shape up its policies on account freezes and closures, as its opaque practices are interfering with payment systems connected to many First-Amendment protected activities.“Companies like...

EFF and FSFP to Court: When Flawed Electronic Voting Systems Disenfranchise Voters, They Should Be Able to Challenge That with Access to the Courts

Atlanta, Georgia—The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and Free Speech for People (FSPF) urged a federal appeals court today to hold that a group of Georgia voters and the organization that supports them have standing to sue the Georgia Secretary of State over the implementation of defective voting systems they...

EFF Sues Police Standards Agency to Obtain Use of Force Training Materials

Woodland, California—The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) sued the California Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training (POST) to obtain materials showing how police are trained in the use of force, after the organization cited third-party copyright interests to illegally withhold them from the public.The lawsuit, filed under California’s Public Records...

Coalition Launches ‘Dark Patterns’ Tip Line to Expose Deceptive Technology Design

San Francisco – The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has joined Consumer Reports, Access Now, PEN America, and DarkPatterns.org in launching the “Dark Patterns Tip Line”—a project for the public to submit examples of deceptive design patterns they see in technology products and services.“Dark patterns” design tactics are used to...

EFF and ACLU Ask Supreme Court to Review Case Against Warrantless Searches of International Travelers’ Phones and Laptops

Washington, D.C. —The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), the American Civil Liberties Union, and the ACLU of Massachusetts today filed a petition for a writ of certiorari, asking the Supreme Court to hear a challenge to the Department of Homeland Security’s policy and practice of warrantless and suspicionless searches of...

EFF Sues Proctorio on Behalf of Student It Falsely Accused of Copyright Infringement to Get Critical Tweets Taken Down

Phoenix, Arizona—The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) filed a lawsuit today against Proctorio Inc. on behalf of college student Erik Johnson, seeking a judgment that he didn’t infringe the company’s copyrights when he linked to excerpts of its software code in tweets criticizing the software maker.Proctorio, a developer of exam...

Video Hearings Tuesday and Wednesday: EFF Will Tell Copyright Office That Consumers Should Have the Freedom to Fix, Modify Digital Devices They Own

San Francisco—On Tuesday, April 20, and Wednesday, April 21, experts from the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) fighting copyright abuse will testify at virtual hearings held by the Copyright Office in favor of exemptions to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) so people who have purchased digital devices—from cameras and...

EFF Partners with DuckDuckGo to Enhance Secure Browsing and Protect User Information on the Web

San Francisco, California—Boosting protection of Internet users’ personal data from snooping advertisers and third-party trackers, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) today announced it has enhanced its groundbreaking HTTPS Everywhere browser extension by incorporating rulesets from DuckDuckGo Smarter Encryption.The partnership represents the next step in the...

Schools Can’t Punish Students for Off-Campus Speech, Including Social Media Posts, EFF Tells Supreme Court

Washington, D.C.—The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) urged the Supreme Court to rule that when students post on social media or speak out online while off campus, they are protected from punishment by school officials under the First Amendment—an important free speech principle amid unprecedented, troubling ...

Video Hearing Tuesday: EFF Tells California Lawmakers to Crack Down on License Plate Data Collection

Sacramento – On Tuesday, March 23, at 1:30 pm PT, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) will urge California senators to crack down on location tracking by passing SB 210, a bill that would require the destruction of automatically collected license plate data within 24 hours of collection, among other...

EFF’s Crowd-Sourced Atlas of Surveillance Project Honored with Award for Advancing Public’s Right to Know About Police Spying

SAN FRANCISCO—The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is pleased to announce it has received the James Madison Freedom of Information Award for Electronic Access for its groundbreaking, crowd-sourced Atlas of Surveillance, the largest-ever collection of searchable data on the use of surveillance technologies by law enforcement agencies across the...

EFF to Supreme Court: Users Must Be Able to Hold Tech Companies Accountable in Lawsuits When Their Data is Mishandled

Washington, D.C.—The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) today urged the Supreme Court to rule that consumers can take big tech companies like Facebook and Google to court, including in class action lawsuits, to hold them accountable for privacy and other user data-related violations, regardless of whether they can show they suffered...

Racial and Immigrant Justice Groups Sue Government for Records of COVID-19 Data Surveillance

San Francisco - The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is representing four racial and immigrant justice groups— Just Futures Law, MediaJustice, Mijente Support Committee, and the Immigrant Defense Projectsuing the U.S. Departments of Homeland Security and Health and Human Services under the Freedom of Information Act...

The shadow of a police officer looms in front of a Ring device on a closed door.

New EFF Report Shows Cops Used Ring Cameras to Monitor Black Lives Matter Protests

San Francisco - The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has obtained emails that show that the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) sent at least one request—and likely many more—for Amazon Ring camera video of last summer’s Black-led protests against police violence. In a report released today, EFF shows that the...

Internet Users Deserve More Choice Through Interoperability and Better Privacy. They Can Have Both, EFF Says in White Paper

San Francisco—The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) today released a white paper outlining how we can usher in a new regime of interoperability aimed at breaking big tech’s grip on users’ Internet experience while still protecting user privacy. In a white paper entitled Privacy Without Monopoly: Data Protection and Interoperability,...

ACLU, EFF, and Tarver Law Offices Urge Supreme Court to Protect Against Forced Disclosure of Phone Passwords to Law Enforcement

Washington, D.C. - The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), along with New Jersey-based Tarver Law Offices, are urging the U.S. Supreme Court to ensure the Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination extends to the digital age by prohibiting law enforcement from forcing individuals to...

Video Hearing Tuesday: ACLU, EFF Urge Court to Require Warrants for Border Searches of Digital Devices

Boston – The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), and the ACLU of Massachusetts will urge an appeals court on Tuesday to require warrants for the government to search electronic devices at U.S. airports and other ports of entry—ensuring that the Fourth Amendment protects travelers as...

Unfiltered: How YouTube’s ‘Content ID’ Helps Shape What We See Online

San Francisco –YouTube is supposed to be a vibrant space for new creativity, but in practice creators are sharply hampered by the site’s “Content ID” system. A new whitepaper from the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) takes a deep dive into the confusing process of getting a video past YouTube’s...

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