UN chief to G20 ministers: Collaboration key to a sustainable future

UN Secretary-General António Guterres, said progress on ending the climate crisis, inequality and the harmful impact of new technologies was “slipping” and in need of an intervention. He noted that the adoption of the Pact for the Future adopted on Sunday at the was an essential first step: “The work starts today,” Mr. Guterres said. […]

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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 has been used against LGBTQ+ people, journalists, human rights defenders, and those criticizing the government. We’ve criticized this law before, […]

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Senate Vote Could Give Helping Hand To Patent Trolls

Update 9/20: The Senate vote scheduled for Thursday, Sep. 19 has been rescheduled for Thursday, Sep. 26.  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 […]

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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 by requiring them to verify their age.  Under HB 1181, signed into law last year, any website that Texas decides is […]

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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 sexually explicit material by requiring all commercial internet services that “make available” explicit content to adopt age verification […]

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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 and Microsoft Teams, which do not offer end-to-end encryption for video, voice, […]

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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 anyway. The government submitted the partially redacted transcript as part of the ongoing litigation over the federal TikTok […]

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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 incarcerated folks. Unfortunately, this is not the case. A combination of predatory pricing, woefully […]

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‘Irrefutable’ need for global regulation of AI: UN experts

“The very nature of the technology itself – transboundary in structure and application – necessitates a global approach,” the final report from the UN Secretary-General appointed panel concludes. Artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming our world, from opening new areas of scientific inquiry and optimizing energy grids, to improving public health and agriculture and promoting progress […]

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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 also worked to ensure they face consequences when they do not. Last week, the […]

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