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Fancy New Terms, Same Old Backdoors: The Encryption Debate in 2019 Almost every week, we hear about another corporate data breach or government attack on privacy . For anyone who wants real privacy online, encryption is the essential component. Governments around the world keep trying to break encryption , seeking to enhance the power of their law enforcement agencies. They’ve tried for years to require companies to build backdoors into encrypted software and devices, which would enable them to listen in on potentially any digital conversation. The FBI has coined a phrase, “going dark,” that it has used since the late ’90s to describe their “problem”—the lack of an omnipresent, all-powerful surveillance tool.  But encryption with special access for a select group isn’t some kind of superpower—it’s just broken encryption . The same security flaws used by U.S. police will be used by oppressive regimes and criminal syndicates. The only innovation in 2019 has been rhetorical—an...

Foreign Police Want to Bypass Privacy Laws—and Courts—to Get Data from Abroad: Year in Review 2019 The global nature of the Internet means that police agencies all around the world facing challenges investigating crime when the  data is stored in other countries. The pressure to make this process easier is mounting. To many governments, that means stripping away legal protections for privacy. Soon, police in other  countries could get their hands on your data based off an international agreement or other legal initiative. Under new cross-border authorities, police can investigate things that might not even be a crime in your country—and their demands for your data might not be reviewed by a judge, or by anyone from your own government. This year EFF and our colleagues have been fighting over access mechanisms like the CLOUD Act in the United States, the US-UK CLOUD Act Agreement , the upcoming US-Australia CLOUD Act Agreement , proposals for a US-EU agreement , the ...

Bloggers and Technologists Whose Voices Are Offline: 2018 in Review This year, we refocused our attention on Offline , our project that seeks to raise awareness of and provide actions readers can take to support imprisoned bloggers, digital activists, and technologists. Originally launched in 2015, Offline currently features six individuals from four countries whose critical voices have been silenced by their governments. Take Eman Al-Nafjan , the Saudi Arabian blogger and women’s rights activist who has long been critical of her government’s human rights abuses while living in the country. In May, Al-Nafjan was arrested along with several other women while filming a woman driving a car—just one month before the ban on women driving was officially lifted. A report from Human Rights Watch has found that a number of the women imprisoned in the crackdown have faced torture and sexual harassment in prison. Although Saudi Arabia has always been restrictive of speech, this year has...

Europe Speeds Ahead on Open Access: 2018 in Review Open access is the common-sense idea that scientific research (especially scientific research funded by the government or philanthropic foundations) should be available to the public—ideally with no legal or technical barriers to access and reuse. EFF is a longtime supporter of the open access movement: we think that promoting broad access to knowledge and information helps to ensure that everyone can speak out and participate in society. For over five years now, EFF and our allies in the open access world have been campaigning for the Fair Access to Science and Technology Research Act (FASTR, S. 1701, H.R. 3427). Despite broad support from both parties and barely any opposition from anyone besides major publishers, Congress continues to snooze on FASTR year after year. While Congress dragged its feet on important legislative fixes, the most exciting changes came in Europe and at the state level. This year, though, something cha...

EFF Goes to Battle at the California Statehouse: 2017 in Review In the wake of the 2016 election, California lawmakers quickly adopted the posture of “The Resistance.” For the digital rights community, this presented an opportunity to pursue legislation that had not previously enjoyed much political momentum. As a result, EFF staff found themselves trekking back and forth between San Francisco and Sacramento to testify on everything from surveillance transparency to broadband privacy.  In the end, we checked off a number of victories, but also some defeats, and created more opportunities for next year. Here’s a selection of the California campaigns EFF launched in 2017.  Broadband Privacy %3Ciframe%20width%3D%22560%22%20height%3D%22315%22%20src%3D%22https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube-nocookie.com%2Fembed%2FcgW9PACVBq4%3Frel%3D0%26autoplay%3D1%22%20frameborder%3D%220%22%20gesture%3D%22media%22%20allow%3D%22encrypted-media%22%20allowfullscreen%3D%22%22%3E%3C%2Fiframe%3E Priv...

Seven Awful DRM Moments from the Year (and Two Bright Spots!): 2017 in Review The Apollo 1201 project is dedicated to ending all the DRM in the world, in all its forms, in our lifetime. The DRM parade of horribles has been going strong since the Clinton administration stuck America with Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (“DMCA”) in 1998. That law gave DRM special, hazardous legal protection: under that law, you’re not allowed to remove DRM, even for a lawful purpose, without risking legal penalties that can include jailtime and even six-figure fines for a first offense. That’s a powerful legal weapon to dangle in front of the corporations of the world, who’ve figured out if they add a thin scrim of DRM to their products, they can make it a literal felony to use their products in ways that they don’t approve of — including creative uses, repair, tinkering and security research. (There’s an exemption process, but it’s burdensome and inadequate to protect many othe...