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Deeplinks

EFF"s Deeplinks Blog: Noteworthy news from around the internet

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Montana Becomes First State to Close the Law...

Deeplinks ·

2025/05/14

Montana has done something that many states and the United States Congress have debated but failed to do: it has just enacted the first attempt to close the dreaded, invasive, unconstitutional, but easily fixed “data broker loophole.” This is a very good step in the right direction because right now, across the country, law enforcement routinely purchases information on individuals it would otherwise need a warrant to obtain. What does that mean? In every state other than Montana, if police want to

How Signal, WhatsApp, Apple, and Google Handle...

Deeplinks ·

2025/05/09

Encrypted chat apps like Signal and WhatsApp are one of the best ways to keep your digital conversations as private as possible. But if you’re not careful with how those conversations are backed up, you can accidentally undermine your privacy. When a conversation is properly encrypted end-to-end, it means that the contents of those messages are only viewable by the sender and the recipient. The organization that runs the messaging platform—such as Meta or Signal—does not have access to the contents

The FCC Must Reject Efforts to Lock Up Public Airwaves

Deeplinks ·

2025/05/07

President Trump’s attack on public broadcasting has attracted plenty of deserved attention, but there’s a far more technical, far more insidious policy change in the offing—one that will take away Americans’ right to unencumbered access to our publicly owned airwaves. The FCC is quietly contemplating a fundamental restructuring of all broadcasting in the United States, via a new DRM-based standard for digital television equipment, enforced by a private “security authority” with control over

Appeals Court Sidesteps The Big Questions on Geofence...

Deeplinks ·

2025/05/07

Another federal appeals court has ruled on controversial geofence warrants—sort of. Last week, the US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit sitting en banc issued a single sentence opinion affirming the lower court opinion in United States v. Chatrie. The practical outcome of this sentence is clear: the evidence collected from a geofence warrant issued to Google can be used against the defendant in this case. But that is largely where the clarity ends, because the fifteen judges of the Fourth

Podcast Episode: Digital Autonomy for Bodily Autonomy

Deeplinks ·

2025/05/07

We all leave digital trails as we navigate the internet – records of what we searched for, what we bought, who we talked to, where we went or want to go in the real world – and those trails usually are owned by the big corporations behind the platforms we use. But what if we valued our digital autonomy the way that we do our bodily autonomy? What if we reclaimed the right to go, read, see, do and be what we wish online as we try to do offline? Moreover, what if we saw digital autonomy and bodily

No Postal Service Data Sharing to Deport Immigrants

Deeplinks ·

2025/05/06

The law enforcement arm of the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) recently joined a U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) task force geared towards finding and deporting immigrants, according to a report from the Washington Post. Now, immigration officials want two sets of data from the U.S. Postal Inspection Service (USPIS). First, they want access to what the Post describes as the agency’s “broad surveillance systems, including Postal Service online account data, package- and mail-tracking

Nominations Open for 2025 EFF Awards!

Deeplinks ·

2025/05/06

Nominations are now open for the 2025 EFF Awards! The nomination window will be open until Friday, May 23rd at 2:00 PM Pacific time. You could nominate the next winner today!For over thirty years, the Electronic Frontier Foundation presented awards to key leaders and organizations in the fight for freedom and innovation online. The EFF Awards celebrate the longtime stalwarts working on behalf of technology users, both in the public eye and behind the scenes. Past Honorees include visionary

Beware the Bundle: Companies Are Banking on Becoming...

Deeplinks ·

2025/05/06

When your local police department buys one piece of surveillance equipment, you can easily expect that the company that sold it will try to upsell them on additional tools and upgrades. At the end of the day, public safety vendors are tech companies, and their representatives are salespeople using all the tricks from the marketing playbook. But these companies aren't just after public money—they also want data. And each new bit of data that police collect contributes to a pool of information to

Washington’s Right to Repair Bill Heads to the Governor

Deeplinks ·

2025/05/01

The right to repair just keeps on winning. Last week, thanks in part to messages from EFF supporters, the Washington legislature passed a strong consumer electronics right-to-repair legislation through both the House and Senate. The bill affirms our right to repair by banning restrictions that keep people and local businesses from accessing the parts, manuals, and tools they need for cheaper, easier repairs. It joined another strong right-to-repair bill for wheelchairs, ensuring folks can access the

Ninth Circuit Hands Users A Big Win: Californians Can...

Deeplinks ·

2025/05/01

Simple common sense tells us that a corporation’s decision to operate in every state shouldn’t mean it can’t be sued in most of them. Sadly, U.S. law doesn’t always follow common sense. That’s why we were so pleased with a recent holding from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Setting a crucial precedent, the court held that consumers can sue national or multinational companies in the consumers’ home courts if those companies violate state data privacy laws. The case, Briskin v. Shopify, stems

Age Verification in the European Union: The...

Deeplinks ·

2025/04/29

This is the second part of a three-part series about age verification in the European Union. In this blog post, we take a deep dive into the age verification app solicited by the European Commission, based on digital identities. Part one gives an overview of the political debate around age verification in the EU and part three explores measures to keep all users safe that do not require age checks. In part one of this series on age verification in the European Union, we gave an overview of the

Congress Passes TAKE IT DOWN Act Despite Major Flaws

Deeplinks ·

2025/04/28

Today the U.S. House of Representatives passed the TAKE IT DOWN Act, giving the powerful a dangerous new route to manipulate platforms into removing lawful speech that they simply don't like. President Trump himself has said that he would use the law to censor his critics. The bill passed the Senate in February, and it now heads to the president's desk. The takedown provision in TAKE IT DOWN applies to a much broader category of content—potentially any images involving intimate or sexual

EFF Leads Prominent Security Experts in Urging Trump...

Deeplinks ·

2025/04/28

Political Retribution for Telling the Truth Weakens the Entire Infosec Community and Threatens Our Democracy; Letter Remains Open for Further Sign-Ons SAN FRANCISCO – The Trump Administration must cease its politically motivated investigation of former U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency Director Christopher Krebs, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and dozens hundreds (see update below) of prominent cybersecurity and election security experts urged in an open letter. The

Texas’s War on Abortion Is Now a War on Free Speech

Deeplinks ·

2025/04/28

Once again, the Texas legislature is coming after the most common method of safe and effective abortion today—medication abortion. Senate Bill (S.B.) 2880* seeks to prevent the sale and distribution of abortion pills—but it doesn’t stop there. By restricting access to certain information online, the bill tries to keep people from learning about abortion drugs, or even knowing that they exist. If passed, S.B. 2880 would make it illegal to “provide information” on how to obtain an abortion-inducing

Trump Administration’s Targeting of International...

Deeplinks ·

2025/04/26

The federal government is using social media surveillance to target student visa holders living in the United States for online speech the Trump administration disfavors. The administration has initiated this new program, called “Catch and Revoke,” in an effort to revoke visas, and it appears to be a cross-agency collaboration between the State Department, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and the Department of Justice. It includes a dedicated task force and the use of AI and other data

IRS-ICE Immigrant Data Sharing Agreement Betrays Data...

Deeplinks ·

2025/04/25

In an unprecedented move, the U.S. Department of Treasury and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) recently reached an agreement allowing the IRS to share with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) taxpayer information of certain immigrants. The redacted 15-page memorandum of understanding (MOU) was exposed in a court case, Centro de Trabajadores Unidos v. Bessent, which seeks to prevent the IRS from unauthorized disclosure of taxpayer information for immigration enforcement purposes

Leaders Must Do All They Can to Bring Alaa Home

Deeplinks ·

2025/04/25

It has now been nearly two months since UK Prime Minister Starmer spoke with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, yet there has been no tangible progress in the case of Alaa Abd El Fattah, the British-Egyptian writer, activist, and technologist who remains imprisoned in Egypt.In yet another blow to his family and supporters, who have been tirelessly advocating for his release, we’ve now learned that Alaa has fallen ill while on a sustained hunger strike protesting his incarceration. Alaa’s

Six Years of Dangerous Misconceptions Targeting Ola...

Deeplinks ·

2025/04/23

Ola Bini was first detained in Quito’s airport six years ago, called a “Russian hacker,” and accused of “alleged participation in the crime of assault on the integrity of computer systems.” It wouldn't take long for Ecuadorean authorities to find out that he was Swedish and an internationally respected free software developer and computer expert. Lacking evidence, authorities rapidly changed the criminal offense underpinning the accusation against Bini and struggled to build a case based on a mere

Digital Identities and the Future of Age Verification...

Deeplinks ·

2025/04/23

This is the first part of a three-part series about age verification in the European Union. In this blog post, we give an overview of the political debate around age verification and explore the age verification proposal introduced by the European Commission, based on digital identities. Part two takes a closer look at the European Commission’s age verification app, and part three explores measures to keep all users safe that do not require age checks. As governments across the world pass laws to

Florida’s Anti-Encryption Bill Is a Wrecking Ball to...

Deeplinks ·

2025/04/22

We've seen plenty of bad tech bills in recent years, often cloaked in vague language about "online safety." But Florida’s SB 868 doesn’t even pretend to be subtle: the state wants a backdoor into encrypted platforms if minors use them, and for law enforcement to have easy access to your messages. This bill should set off serious alarm bells for anyone who cares about digital rights, secure communication, or simply the ability to message someone privately without the government listening. Florida

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