EFF joined the ACLU of Wisconsin in filing a petition to the Wisconsin Supreme Court, asking it to rule that the state’s constitution requires a warrant for retrospective searches of ALPR databases used by law enforcement in four cities.
EFF legal intern Gabrielle Ladun was the principal author of this post. The Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General (DHS OIG) has published a summary of findings from its audit of the Transportation Security Administration’s (TSA) facial recognition technology. While the detailed findings are classified, the summary states that the OIG’s audit uncovered a “significant weakness” in the technology’s ability to protect the privacy of passenger data. This has massive privacy implications for the millions of passengers who...
Three decades ago, the U.S government treated encryption like a weapon, and it took some unlikely heroes to set it free: a grad student, a junior lawyer, and a fledgling digital rights group who sued the federal government.
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EFF defends your privacy and free expression because technology should serve all people, not just the powerful. We’re a nonprofit powered by members, and we need you in this fight.
AI technologies are affecting our civil liberties as never before. Ensuring that AI serves people, not power, starts with cutting through the hype. AI technologies are not magic wands—they are general-purpose tools. If we want to regulate those technologies to reduce harms without shutting down benefits, we have...
Age verification (or age-gating) laws generally require online services to check, estimate, or verify all users’ ages—often through invasive tools like ID checks, biometric scans, or other dubious “age estimation” methods—before granting them access to certain online content or services. Governments in the U.S. and around the world are increasingly...
EFF joined the ACLU of Wisconsin in filing a petition to the Wisconsin Supreme Court, asking it to rule that the state’s constitution requires a warrant for retrospective searches of ALPR databases used by law enforcement in four cities.
EFF legal intern Gabrielle Ladun was the principal author of this post. The Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General (DHS OIG) has published a summary of findings from its audit of the Transportation Security Administration’s (TSA) facial recognition technology. While the detailed findings are classified, the summary...
No one should have to think twice before criticizing the government online. But a mass surveillance program known as "Catch and Revoke" was created to make millions do just that. EFF and other defenders of free speech are fighting back. In our latest EFFector newsletter, we're talking about a...
In an extremely disappointing ruling, a California trial court dismissed SIREN v. San Jose, our case challenging the city of San Jose’s warrantless searches of its vast stores of automated license plate reader (ALPR) data. EFF and the ACLU of Northern California represent SIREN and CAIR California, two...
Three decades ago, the U.S government treated encryption like a weapon, and it took some unlikely heroes to set it free: a grad student, a junior lawyer, and a fledgling digital rights group who sued the federal government.
In the past two years, the federal government has unlawfully consolidated data exposing our private information. This consolidation has been chaotic but generally came in three rolling waves: It started with DOGE, moved to agency-to-agency data sharing with ICE, and then attempted data-driven purges of state voter rolls.We all...
EFF strongly condemns Turkey’s state-led discriminatory, oppressive attacks on feminist and LGBTQ+ organisations, media platforms, student groups, and rights defenders and activists within the country. Since mid-September, access to the websites and social media accounts of a dozen organizations have been blocked by court order, while over 60...
Age verification proposals are often presented as a simple tradeoff: sacrifice a little privacy to better safeguard children online. But that framing overlooks a more fundamental question. What happens to people who cannot verify their age at all?
Decisions about your privacy, encryption, artificial intelligence, online speech, and digital security will determine whether technology empowers people or concentrates power in the hands of a few. A grant from your DAF to EFF supports our mission to ensure that technology remains a force for freedom, innovation, and human rights.
