Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act lets US intelligence agencies collect communications from foreigners abroad without a warrant, and routinely sweeps in Americans’ emails, messages, and calls in the process. The authority for this program is set to expire Friday, June 12th, 2026, at midnight. As we wrote earlier this week, […]

Corporations harvest and monetize ever-growing amounts of our personal data, such as our browsing history and physical location. One bitter fruit of this poisonous tree is known as “surveillance pricing”: corporations offer the same product to two different people at two different prices, based on scrutiny of these people’s respective […]

What do EFF staffers Sarah Chen, Javier Morales, Caitlin Chin, Emma Rodriguez, and Mikko Kopponen have in common?  For one thing, they don’t exist.  For another, all have been quoted as EFF experts in articles published in the past two months on a site called News-USA Today, which describes itself as “an independent news publisher focused […]

Last June during Pride, we launched a new initiative—LGBT Q&A—where we answered your most pressing queer-related digital rights questions on EFF’s Instagram and TikTok accounts. No question was too big or too small! You asked us things like what pictures to use on dating apps; how to remove your name from internet searches; why […]

In a voice vote earlier this week, the House of Representatives passed H.R. 6028, the “Legislative Branch Agencies Clarification Act.” The legislation is presented as a technical reorganization of some government agencies, but it’s much more than that.  H.R. 6028 would fundamentally change the U.S. Copyright Office, and not in a good way. […]

For months now, Congress has been kicking the ball down the road—temporarily postponing the expiration of the mass surveillance authority Section 702 of FISA in hopes that some consensus could be reached. Now, with the deadline looming, the stakes have never been higher. Nearly every time the statute has come up for renewal, the people demanding […]

Enshittification isn't just a sweary word to describe the accelerating decay of the online platforms, apps, and services that we rely on.   It's a framework for understanding the structural incentives that make tech companies enemies of their own users over time—the surveillance business model, the erosion of privacy, the monopoly power […]

Across the country, surveillance companies have spun a vast web of tens of thousands of license plate cameras. The people selling this tech want you to believe that it's for your safety, but how are authorities really using automated license plate readers (ALPR)? In this week's EFFector newsletter, we're looking at how these powerful surveillance […]

Several U.S. states are pushing to ban young people from social media entirely. This marks the latest wave of censorship bills masquerading as “children’s online safety” measures, with states like Massachusetts, Idaho, Minnesota, North Carolina, South Carolina, Illinois, and EFF’s home state of California leading the charge. Just a few […]

The Senate Judiciary Committee is set to consider and vote on the Nurture Originals, Foster Art, and Keep Entertainment Safe Act (NO FAKES). Instead of targeting the real privacy harms posed by AI-generated replicas, this law would create another layer of internet censorship on top of the already existing legal and voluntary takedown systems. […]

Just days after a damning WIRED report exposed that Meta had quietly embedded facial recognition technology (FRT) code into millions of phones, the tech giant has quietly acquiesced in demands to reverse course. Last week, researchers identified code in Meta AI, a companion app for its line of smart glasses, that could convert images of faces into […]

On a warm June evening in San Francisco, attorneys and other legally-minded friends of EFF gathered for our 18th Annual Cyberlaw Trivia Night, an annual test of tech-related legal knowledge, and the ability to remember some deeply obscure facts under pressure.  Returning Quizmaster Kurt Opsahl once again guided competitors through six rounds of […]

The internet is an essential resource for young people and adults to access information, explore community, and find themselves—both inside countries and across continents. Yet governments around the world continue to introduce and implement legislation requiring all online users to verify their ages before accessing the digital space. In some […]

Last year during LGBTQ+ Pride month, we launched an LGBT Q&A where we answered your most pressing digital rights questions on EFF’s Instagram and TikTok  accounts.  Ahead of LGBT Q&A Season 2 launching next week, we’re posting a recap with some of the questions we answered. Check them out below. You wanted to know: How to stay safe […]

California lawmakers are again considering A.B. 412, a bill that would require AI developers to identify and disclose copyrighted works used to train generative AI systems. The problem this year is the same as last year: it’s practically impossible to comply with this law. The bill demands information that often does not exist, and cannot […]

President Trump’s highly politicized appointment of an entirely unqualified acting Director of National Intelligence (DNI) underscores why the government’s warrantless mass spying power must be reformed.  Congress now faces a deadline of Friday, June 12 to reauthorize Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, an […]

Governments must not adopt emerging and powerful AI technologies without also adopting strong and clear safeguards to protect Constitutional rights, EFF Senior Policy Analyst Dr. Matthew Guariglia testified today to the House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Protection.  During the hearing on “The AI Security […]

Update, June 8, 2026: Following widespread public scrutiny and WIRED’s critical reporting, Meta has stripped the unactivated facial recognition code from its latest Meta AI app update. Meta has deployed facial recognition code to millions of their always-on surveillance glasses, according to new reporting by Wired. EFF’s Threat Lab was able […]

EFF is on the front lines of the fight against tech-enabled tyranny, but we aren't alone. Our team depends on your help to fight back against the surveillance state. JOIN EFF People around the world are pushing back against the mass surveillance that undermines privacy and free expression for everyone. You can help during EFF's spring membership […]

EFF welcomes our new Executive Director Nicole Ozer today!  Nicole is a legal expert on privacy and surveillance, artificial intelligence, and digital speech who previously served as the inaugural executive director of the Center for Constitutional Democracy at UC Law San Francisco. From 2004-2025, she was founding director of the Technology and […]

After public outrage, California lawmakers are moving closer to exempting open-source operating systems from the sweeping age-bracketing regime mandated by last year’s Digital Age Assurance Act (AB 1043). Nonetheless, the current bill still jeopardizes internet users’ speech, privacy, and security. While the open source exemption, if passed, […]

In the rush to block young people from certain parts of the internet, lawmakers are creating a privacy and security nightmare for everyone. This scenario is already playing out globally. Help us stop it and keep the web open and accessible for all. JOIN EFF Protect the web for everyone Even with the best intentions, every online age verification […]