Digital ID Isn't for Everybody, and That's Okay | EFFector 36.13

Need help staying up-to-date on the latest in the digital rights movement? You're in luck! In our latest newsletter, we outline the privacy protections needed for digital IDs, explain our call for the U.S. Supreme Court to strike down an...

How to Stop Advertisers From Tracking Your Teen Across the Internet

This post was written by EFF fellow Miranda McClellan. Teens between the ages of 13 and 17 are being tracked across the internet using identifiers known as Advertising IDs. When children turn 13, they age out of the data protections provided by...

EFF Awards Night: Celebrating Digital Rights Founders Advancing Free Speech and Access to Information Around the World

EFF honors investigative news organization 404 Media, Latin American digital rights group Fundación Karisma founder Carolina Botero, and Cairo-based nonprofit Connecting Humanity,

New Email Scam Includes Pictures of Your House. Don’t Fall For It.

You may have arrived at this post because you received an email with an attached PDF from a purported hacker who is demanding payment or else they will send compromising information—such as pictures sexual in nature—to all your friends and family....

FTC Report Confirms: Commercial Surveillance is Out of Control

A new Federal Trade Commission (FTC) report confirms what EFF has been warning about for years: tech giants are widely harvesting and sharing your personal information to fuel their online behavioral advertising businesses. This four-year...

Digital ID Isn't for Everybody, and That's Okay

How many times do you pull out your driver’s license a week? Maybe two to four times to purchase age restricted items, pick up prescriptions, or go to a bar. If you get a mobile driver’s license (mDL) or other forms of digital identification (ID)...

Patient Rights and Consumer Groups Join EFF In Opposing Two Extreme Patent Bills

The U.S. Senate is set to vote this Thursday on two bills that could significantly empower patent trolls. The Patent Eligibility Restoration Act (PERA) would bring back many of the abstract computer patents that have been barred for the past 10...

EFF to Federal Trial Court: Section 230’s Little-Known Third Immunity for User-Empowerment Tools Covers Unfollow Everything 2.0

EFF along with the ACLU of Northern California and the Center for Democracy...

EFF to Supreme Court: Strike Down Texas’ Unconstitutional Age Verification Law

WASHINGTON, D.C.—The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), the Woodhull Freedom Foundation, and TechFreedom urged the Supreme Court today to strike down HB 1181, a Texas law that unconstitutionally restricts adults’ access to sexual content online...

Calls to Scrap Jordan's Cybercrime Law Echo Calls to Reject Cybercrime Treaty

In a number of countries around the world, communities—and particularly those that are already vulnerable—are threatened by expansive cybercrime and surveillance legislation. One of those countries is Jordan, where a cybercrime law enacted in 2023...

Prison Banned Books Week: Being in Jail Shouldn’t Mean Having Nothing to Read

Across the United States, nearly every state’s prison system offers some form of tablet access to incarcerated people, many of which boast of sizable libraries of eBooks. Knowing this, one might assume that access to books is on the rise for...

Square Peg, Meet Round Hole: Previously Classified TikTok Briefing Shows Error of Ban

A previously classified transcript reveals Congress knows full well that American TikTok users engage in First Amendment protected speech on the platform and that banning the application is an inadequate way to protect privacy—but it banned TikTok...

Strong End-to-End Encryption Comes to Discord Calls

We’re happy to see that Discord will soon start offering a form of end-to-end encryption dubbed “DAVE” for its voice and video chats. This puts some of Discord’s audio and video offerings in line with Zoom, and separates it from tools like Slack...

Canada’s Leaders Must Reject Overbroad Age Verification Bill

Canadian lawmakers are considering a bill, S-210, that’s meant to benefit children, but would sacrifice the security, privacy, and free speech of all internet users. First introduced in 2023, S-210 seeks to prevent young people from encountering...

Human Rights Claims Against Cisco Can Move Forward (Again)

Google and Amazon – You Should Take Note of Your Own Aiding and Abetting Risk EFF has long pushed companies that provide powerful surveillance tools to governments to take affirmative steps to avoid aiding and abetting human rights abuses. We have...

Senate Vote Tomorrow Could Give Helping Hand To Patent Trolls

A patent on crowdfunding. A patent on tracking packages. A patent on photo contests. A patent on watching an ad online. A patent on computer bingo. A patent on upselling. These are just a few of the patents used to harass software developers and...

Unveiling Venezuela’s Repression: A Legacy of State Surveillance and Control

The post was written by Laura Vidal (PhD), independent researcher in learning and digital rights.This is part two of a series. Part one on surveillance and control around the July election is here.Over the past decade, the government in Venezuela...

The New U.S. House Version of KOSA Doesn’t Fix Its Biggest Problems

An amended version of the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) that is being considered this week in the U.S. House is still a dangerous online censorship bill that contains many of the same fundamental problems of a similar version the Senate passed in...

KOSA’s Online Censorship Threatens Abortion Access

For those living in one of the 22 states where abortion is banned or heavily restricted, the internet can be a lifeline. It has essential information on where and how to access care, links to abortion funds, and guidance on ways to navigate...

Unveiling Venezuela’s Repression: Surveillance and Censorship Following July’s Presidential Election

The post was written by Laura Vidal (PhD), independent researcher in learning and digital rights.This is part one of a series. Part two on the legacy of Venezuela’s state surveillance is here.As thousands of Venezuelans took to the streets across...