Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF)

Articles by Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF)

A map with the location of two incidents where shots were detected by a ShotSpotter sensor, during a demonstration at the Incident Review Center, in Newark, California, 6 November 2013, Lea Suzuki/The San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images

Chicago Inspector General: Police use ShotSpotter to justify illegal stop-and-frisks

The Chicago Office of the Inspector General has released a highly critical report on the Police’s use of ShotSpotter, a surveillance technology that relies on a combination of artificial intelligence and human “acoustic experts” to purportedly identify and locate gunshots based on a network of high-powered microphones located on some of the city’s streets.

Two men look at a mobile phone during Milano Pride, an LGBTQ+ celebration, in Milan, Italy, 27 June 2019, Emanuele Cremaschi/Getty Images

How LGBTQI+ content is censored under the guise of “sexually explicit”

Apple’s new feature assumes that parents are benevolent protectors, but for many children, that isn’t the case: parents can also be the abuser, or may have more traditional or restrictive ideas of acceptable exploration than their children.

A man shoots video with an Apple iPhone during a visit to the Wular Lake, Jammu and Kashmir, India, 20 May 2021, Nasir Kachroo/NurPhoto via Getty Images

If you build it, they will come: Apple has opened the backdoor to increased surveillance and censorship around the world

Apple’s new program for scanning images sent on iMessage steps back from the company’s prior support for the privacy and security of encrypted messages.

A man looks at a computer screen with a Facebook logo, Warsaw, Poland, 21 February 2021, Photo Illustration by Jaap Arriens/NurPhoto

Facebook’s attack on research is everyone’s problem

Facebook recently banned the accounts of several New York University (NYU) researchers who run Ad Observer, an accountability project that tracks paid disinformation, from its platform.

FBI Director Christopher Wray prepares to testify during a Senate Select Committee on Intelligence hearing, on Capitol Hill, in Washington, DC, 14 April 2021, GRAEME JENNINGS/POOL/AFP via Getty Images

Should Congress close the FBI’s backdoor for spying on American communications? Yes.

All of us deserve basic protection against government searches and seizures that the Constitution provides, including requiring law enforcement to get a warrant before it can access our communications. But currently, the FBI has a backdoor into our communications, a loophole, that Congress can and should close.

In this photo illustration the logo for Grindr, a social networking application for the gay community, is displayed on a smartphone, 20 November 2019, Avishek Das/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images

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.

In this photo illustration a United States Postal Service logo is displayed on a smartphone, 1 July 2019, Igor Golovniov/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images

EFF sues U.S. Postal Service for records about covert social media spying program

The service looked through people’s posts prior to street protests.

Texas state representatives at the State Capitol, during a special session to discuss a number of legislative issues, including social media censorship, in Austin, Texas, 8 July 2021, Tamir Kalifa/Getty Images

Right or left, you should be worried about Big Tech censorship

Claiming that “right-wing voices are being censored,” Republican-led legislatures in Florida and Texas have introduced legislation to “end Big Tech censorship” – these laws are deeply misguided and nakedly unconstitutional.