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

Lower Court Improperly Dismissed Lawsuit Against Privacy-Invasive Data Collection PracticeSan 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...

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Data Brokers are the Problem

Why should you care about data brokers? Reporting this week about a Substack publication outing a priest with location data from Grindr shows once again how easy it is for anyone to take advantage of data brokers’ stores to cause real harm. This is not the first time Grindr has been in the spotlight for sharing user information with third-party data...

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Council of Europe’s Actions Belie its Pledges to Involve Civil Society in Development of Cross Border Police Powers Treaty

As the Council of Europe’s flawed cross border surveillance treaty moves through its final phases of approval, time is running out to ensure cross-border investigations occur with robust privacy and human rights safeguards in place. The innocuously named “Second Additional Protocol” to the Council of Europe’s (CoE) Cybercrime Convention seeks to set...

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Venmo Takes Another Step Toward Privacy

As part of a larger redesign, the payment app Venmo has discontinued its public “global” feed. That means the Venmo app will no longer show you strangers’ transactions—or show strangers your transactions—all in one place. This is a big step in the right direction. But, as the redesigned app rolls out to users over the next few weeks, it’s unclear what...

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EFF to Ninth Circuit: Recent Supreme Court Decision in Van Buren Does Not Criminalize Web Scraping

In an amicus brief filed Friday, EFF and the Internet Archive argued to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals that the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Van Buren v. United States shows that the federal computer crime law does not criminalize the common and useful practice of scraping publicly available information on the internet. The case, hiQ Labs,...

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Cheers to the Winners of EFF's 13th Annual Cyberlaw Trivia Night

On June 17th, the best legal minds in the Bay Area gathered together for a night filled with tech law trivia—but there was a twist! With in-person events still on the horizon, EFF's 13th Annual Cyberlaw Trivia Night moved to a new browser-based virtual space, custom built in Gather. This 2D environment allowed guests to interact with other participants...

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India’s Draconian Rules for Internet Platforms Threaten User Privacy and Undermine Encryption

The Indian government’s new Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code (“2021 Rules”) pose huge problems for free expression and Internet users’ privacy. They include dangerous requirements for platforms to identify the origins of messages and pre-screen content, which fundamentally breaks strong encryption for messaging tools. Though WhatsApp...

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Pegasus Project Shows the Need for Real Device Security, Accountability and Redress for those Facing State-Sponsored Malware

People all around the world deserve the right to have a private conversation. Communication privacy is a human right, a civil liberty and one of the centerpieces of a free society. And while we all deserve basic communications privacy, the journalists, NGO workers and human rights and democracy activists among us are especially at risk, since they are...

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Victory! Californians Can Now Choose Their Broadband Destiny

Years ago, we noted that despite being one of the world’s largest economies, the state of California had no broadband plan for universal, affordable, high-speed access. It is clear that access that meets our needs requires fiber optic infrastructure, yet most Californians were stuck with slow broadband monopolies due to laws supported by the cable monopolies...

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Final Days: Connect to a Brighter Internet ☀️

We’ve added one more day to EFF's summer membership drive! Over 900 supporters have answered the call to get the internet right by defending privacy, free speech, and innovation. It’s possible if you’re with us. Will you join EFF? Through Wednesday, anyone can join EFF or renew their membership for as little as $20 and get a pack of issue-focused Digital...

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