A misguided bill that would have required many people to show ID to get online has died without getting a floor vote in the California legislature, where key deadlines for bill passage passed this weekend. Thank you to our supporters for helping us to kill this wrongheaded bill, especially those of you who took the time…
The Constitution prohibits dragnet device searches, especially when those searches are designed to uncover political speech, EFF explained in a friend-of-the-court brief filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit. The case, Armendariz v. City of Colorado Springs, challenges device and data seizures and searches conducted by the Colorado Springs police after…
EFF is closely monitoring the situation in France in which Telegram’s CEO Pavel Durov was charged with having committed criminal offenses, most of them seemingly related to the operation of Telegram. This situation has the potential to pose a serious danger to security, privacy, and freedom of expression for Telegram’s 950 million users. On August…
When you talk to your friends and family on Snapchat or Facebook, you should be assured that those services will not freely disclose your communications to the government or other private parties. That is why the California Supreme Court must take up and reverse the appellate opinion in the case of Snap v. The Superior Court…
Imagine a company you recently applied to work at used an artificial intelligence program to analyze your application to help expedite the review process. Does that creep you out? Well, you’re not alone. Consumer Reports recently released a national survey finding that Americans are uncomfortable with use of artificial intelligence (AI) and algorithmic decision-making in…
Copyright law is not a tool to punish or silence critics. This is a principle so fundamental that it is the ur-example of fair use, which typically allows copying another’s creative work when necessary for criticism. But sometimes, unscrupulous rightsholders misuse copyright law to bully critics into silence by filing meritless lawsuits, threatening potentially enormous…
This article was originally published by The Legal Aid Society’s Decrypting a Defense Newsletter on August 5, 2024 and is reprinted here with permission. Police departments and law enforcement agencies are increasingly collecting personal information using drones, also known as unmanned aerial vehicles. In addition to high-resolution photographic and video cameras, police drones may be…
School is back in session, so prepare for your first lesson from EFF! Today you’ll learn about the latest court ruling on the dangers of geofence warrants, our letter urging Bumble to require opt-in consent to sell user data, and the continued fight against the UN Cybercrime Treaty. If you’d like future lessons about the…
Performers and ordinary humans are increasingly concerned that they may be replaced or defamed by AI-generated imitations. We’re seeing a host of bills designed to address that concern – but every one just generates new problems. Case in point: the NO FAKES Act. We flagged numerous flaws in a “discussion draft” back in April, to…
In a victory for free speech and privacy, a federal appellate court confirmed last week that parts of the California Age-Appropriate Design Code Act likely violate the First Amendment, and that other parts require further review by the lower court. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit correctly rejected rules requiring online businesses…