The federal SECURE Data Act is not a serious consumer privacy bill, and its provisions—if enacted—would be a retreat from already insufficient state protections. Republicans on the House Energy and Commerce Committee released a draft of the bill late last month without bipartisan support. The bill is weaker than congressional proposals in prior years, as well […]
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The New York Times reported that Meta is considering adding face recognition technology to its smart glasses. According to an internal Meta document, the company may launch the product “during a dynamic political environment where many civil society groups that we would expect to attack us would have their resources focused on other concerns.” This […]
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We are calling on technology companies like Meta and Google to stand up for their users by resisting the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) lawless administrative subpoenas for user data. In the past year, DHS has consistently targeted people engaged in First Amendment activity. Among other things, the agency has issued subpoenas to technology companies to […]
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EFF intern Alexandra Halbeck contributed to this blog When people talk to a chatbot, they often reveal highly personal information they wouldn’t share with anyone else. Chat logs are digital repositories of our most sensitive and revealing information. They are also tempting targets for law enforcement, to which the U.S. Constitution gives only one answer: […]
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A California judge ordered the end of a dragnet law enforcement program that surveilled the electrical smart meter data of thousands of Sacramento residents. The Sacramento County Superior Court ruled that the surveillance program run by the Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD) and police violated a state privacy statute, which bars the disclosure of residents’ […]
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Amazon Ring’s upcoming face recognition tool has the potential to violate the privacy rights of millions of people and could result in Amazon breaking state biometric privacy laws. Ring plans to introduce a feature to its home surveillance cameras called “Familiar Faces,” to identify specific people who come into view of the camera. When turned […]
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In a victory for transparency, the government contractor Pen-Link agreed to disclose the prices and descriptions of surveillance products that it sold to a local California Sheriff’s office. The settlement ends a months-long California public records lawsuit with the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the San Joaquin County Sheriff’s Office. The settlement provides further proof that […]
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EFF asked the California Supreme Court not to weaken the Stored Communications Act, a 1986 federal law that restricts how providers can disclose the content of your communications to the government or private parties. The law is built on the principle that you have a reasonable expectation of privacy that providers like Snap and Meta […]
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Which surveillance technologies are California police using? Are they buying access to your location data? If so, how much are they paying? These are basic questions the Electronic Frontier Foundation is trying to answer in a new lawsuit called Pen-Link v. County of San Joaquin Sheriff’s Office. EFF filed a motion in California Superior Court […]
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The CEO of 23andMe has recently said she’d consider selling the genetic genealogy testing company–and with it, the sensitive DNA data that it’s collected, and stored, from many of its 15 million customers. Customers and their relatives are rightly concerned. Research has shown that a majority of white Americans can already be identified from just […]
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