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Deeplinks

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

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Customs & Border Protection Fails Baseline Privacy...

Deeplinks ·

2024/12/20

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has failed to address six out of six main privacy protections for three of its border surveillance programs—surveillance towers, aerostats, and unattended ground sensors—according to a new assessment by the Government Accountability Office (GAO). In the report, GAO compared the policies for these technologies against six of the key Fair Information Practice Principles that agencies are supposed to use when evaluating systems and processes that may impact

The Breachies 2024: The Worst, Weirdest, Most...

Deeplinks ·

2024/12/19

Every year, countless emails hit our inboxes telling us that our personal information was accessed, shared, or stolen in a data breach. In many cases, there is little we can do. Most of us can assume that at least our phone numbers, emails, addresses, credit card numbers, and social security numbers are all available somewhere on the internet. But some of these data breaches are more noteworthy than others, because they include novel information about us, are the result of particularly noteworthy

Saving the Internet in Europe: Defending Free Expression

Deeplinks ·

2024/12/19

This post is part two in a series of posts about EFF’s work in Europe. Read about how and why we work in Europe here. EFF’s mission is to ensure that technology supports freedom, justice, and innovation for all people of the world. While our work has taken us to far corners of the globe, in recent years we have worked to expand our efforts in Europe, building up a policy team with key expertise in the region, and bringing our experience in advocacy and technology to the European fight for digital

We're Creating a Better Future for the Internet 🧑‍🏭

Deeplinks ·

2024/12/19

In the early years of the internet, website administrators had to face off with a burdensome and expensive process to deploy SSL certificates. But today, hundreds of thousands of people have used EFF’s free Certbot tool to spread that sweet HTTPS across the web. Now almost all internet traffic is encrypted, and everyone gets a basic level of security. Small actions mean big change when we act together. Will you support important work like this and give EFF a Year-End Challenge boost? Give

There’s No Copyright Exception to First Amendment...

Deeplinks ·

2024/12/19

Some people just can’t take a hint. Today’s perfect example is a group of independent movie distributors that have repeatedly tried, and failed, to force Reddit to give up the IP addresses of several users who posted about downloading movies. The distributors claim they need this information to support their copyright claims against internet service provider Frontier Communications, because it might be evidence that Frontier wasn’t enforcing its repeat infringer policy and therefore couldn’t claim

UK Politicians Join Organizations in Calling for...

Deeplinks ·

2024/12/19

As the UK’s Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Foreign Secretary David Lammy have failed to secure the release of British-Egyptian blogger, coder, and activist Alaa Abd El-Fattah, UK politicians call for tougher measures to secure Alaa’s immediate return to the UK.During a debate on detained British nationals abroad in early December, chairwoman of the Commons Foreign Affairs Committee Emily Thornberry asked the House of Commons why the UK has continued to organize industry delegations to Cairo while

What You Should Know When Joining Bluesky

Deeplinks ·

2024/12/18

Bluesky promises to rethink social media by focusing on openness and user control. But what does this actually mean for the millions of people joining the site?November was a good month for alternatives to X. Many users hit their balking point after two years of controversial changes turned Twitter into X, a restrictive hub filled with misinformation and hate speech. Musk’s involvement in the U.S. presidential election was the last straw for many who are now looking for greener pastures. Threads,

Australia Banning Kids from Social Media Does More...

Deeplinks ·

2024/12/18

Age verification systems are surveillance systems that threaten everyone’s privacy and anonymity. But Australia’s government recently decided to ignore these dangers, passing a vague, sweeping piece of age verification legislation after giving only a day for comments. The Online Safety Amendment (Social Media Minimum Age) Act 2024, which bans children under the age of 16 from using social media, will force platforms to take undefined “reasonable steps” to verify users’ ages and prevent young people

EFF Statement on U.S. Supreme Court's Decision to...

Deeplinks ·

2024/12/18

The TikTok ban itself and the DC Circuit's approval of it should be of great concern even to those who find TikTok undesirable or scary. Shutting down communications platforms or forcing their reorganization based on concerns of foreign propaganda and anti-national manipulation is an eminently anti-democratic tactic, one that the U.S. has previously condemned globally. The U.S. government should not be able to restrict speech—in this case by cutting off a tool used by 170 million Americans to

Speaking Freely: Winnie Kabintie

Deeplinks ·

2024/12/18

Winnie Kabintie is a journalist and Communications Specialist based in Nairobi, Kenya. As an award-winning youth media advocate, she is passionate about empowering young people with Media and Information Literacy skills, enabling them to critically engage with and shape the evolving digital media landscape in meaningful ways. Greene: To get us started, can you tell us what the term free expression means to you? I think it's the opportunity to speak in a language that you understand and speak

“Can the Government Read My Text Messages?”

Deeplinks ·

2024/12/18

You should be able to message your family and friends without fear that law enforcement is reading everything you send. Privacy is a human right, and that’s why we break down the ways you can protect your ability to have a private conversation. Learn how governments are able to read certain text messages, and how to ensure your messages are end-to-end encrypted on Digital Rights Bytes, our new site dedicated to helping break down tech issues into byte-sized pieces. Whether you’re just starting to

10 Resources for Protecting Your Digital Security |...

Deeplinks ·

2024/12/17

Get a head-start on your New Year's resolution to stay up-to-date on digital rights news by subscribing to EFF's EFFector newsletter! This edition of the newsletter covers our top ten digital security resources for those concerned about the incoming administration, a new bill that could put an end to SLAPP lawsuits, and our recent amicus brief arguing that device searches at the border require a warrant (we've been arguing this for a long time). You can read the full newsletter here, and even get

Still Flawed and Lacking Safeguards, UN Cybercrime...

Deeplinks ·

2024/12/17

Most UN Member States, including the U.S., are expected to support adoption of the flawed UN Cybercrime Treaty when it’s scheduled to go before the UN General Assembly this week for a vote, despite warnings that it poses dangerous risks to human rights. EFF and its civil society partners–along with cybersecurity and internet companies, press organizations, the International Chamber of Congress, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, and others–for years have raised red flags that

Saving the Internet in Europe: How EFF Works in Europe

Deeplinks ·

2024/12/16

This post is part one in a series of posts about EFF’s work in Europe. EFF’s mission is to ensure that technology supports freedom, justice, and innovation for all people of the world. While our work has taken us to far corners of the globe, in recent years we have worked to expand our efforts in Europe, building up a policy team with key expertise in the region, and bringing our experience in advocacy and technology to the European fight for digital rights. In this blog post series, we will

Speaking Freely: Prasanth Sugathan

Deeplinks ·

2024/12/13

Interviewer: David GreeneThis interview has been edited for length and clarity.* Prasanth Sugathan is Legal Director at Software Freedom Law Center, India. (SFLC.in). Prasanth is a lawyer with years of practice in the fields of technology law, intellectual property law, administrative law and constitutional law. He is an engineer turned lawyer and has worked closely with the Free Software community in India. He has appeared in many landmark cases before various Tribunals, High Courts and the

EFF Speaks Out in Court for Citizen Journalists

Deeplinks ·

2024/12/12

No one gets to abuse copyright to shut down debate. Because of that, we at EFF represent Channel 781, a group of citizen journalists whose YouTube channel was temporarily shut down following copyright infringement claims made by Waltham Community Access Corporation (WCAC). As part of that case, the federal court in Massachusetts heard oral arguments in Channel 781 News v. Waltham Community Access Corporation, a pivotal case for copyright law and digital journalism. WCAC, Waltham’s public access

X's Last-Minute Update to the Kids Online Safety Act...

Deeplinks ·

2024/12/12

Late last week, the Senate released yet another version of the Kids Online Safety Act, written, reportedly, with the assistance of X CEO Linda Yaccarino in a flawed attempt to address the critical free speech issues inherent in the bill. This last minute draft remains, at its core, an unconstitutional censorship bill that threatens the online speech and privacy rights of all internet users. TELL CONGRESS: VOTE NO ON KOSA no kosa in last minute funding bills Update Fails to Protect Users from

Brazil’s Internet Intermediary Liability Rules Under...

Deeplinks ·

2024/12/11

The Brazilian Supreme Court is on the verge of deciding whether digital platforms can be held liable for third-party content even without a judicial order requiring removal. A panel of eleven justices is examining two cases jointly, and one of them directly challenges whether Brazil’s internet intermediary liability regime for user-generated content aligns with the country’s Federal Constitution or fails to meet constitutional standards. The outcome of these cases can seriously undermine important

Introducing EFF’s New Video Series: Gate Crashing

Deeplinks ·

2024/12/10

The promise of the internet—at least in the early days—was that it would lower the barriers to entry for any number of careers. Traditionally, the spheres of novel writing, culture criticism, and journalism were populated by well-off straight white men, with anyone not meeting one of those criteria being an outlier. Add in giant corporations acting as gatekeepers to those spheres and it was a very homogenous culture. The internet has changed that. There is a lot about the internet that needs fixing,

Speaking Freely: Tomiwa Ilori

Deeplinks ·

2024/12/10

Interviewer: David Greene*This interview has been edited for length and clarity. Tomiwa Ilori is an expert researcher and a policy analyst with focus on digital technologies and human rights. Currently, he is an advisor for the B-Tech Africa Project at UN Human Rights and a Senior ICFP Fellow at HURIDOCS. His postgraduate qualifications include masters and doctorate degrees from the Centre for Human Rights, Faculty of Law, University of Pretoria. All views and opinions expressed in this

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