Top Features
Cell-site simulators (also known as Stingrays or IMSI catchers) are devices that masquerade as legitimate cell-phone towers, tricking phones within a certain radius into connecting to the device rather than a tower. Rayhunter is a new open source tool we’ve created that runs on an affordable mobile hotspot that we hope empowers everyone, regardless of technical skill, to help search out cell-site simulators around the world.
We've opposed the Take It Down Act because it could be easily manipulated to take down lawful content that powerful people simply don't like. Earlier this month, President Trump demonstrated he has a similar view on the bill. He wants to sign the bill into law, then use it to remove content about — him. And he won't be the only powerful person to do so.
EFF Updates
EFF is deeply saddened to learn of the passing of Mark Klein, a bona fide hero who risked civil liability and criminal prosecution to help expose a massive spying program that violated the rights of millions of Americans. We are forever grateful to him for having the courage to stand up and EFF will do our best to honor that legacy by continuing the fight.
One of the most powerful tools to fight back against bad governance is public ridicule. That's where we come in: Every year during Sunshine Week, EFF, MuckRock and AAN Publishers team up to publish The Foilies. This annual report—now a decade old—names and shames the most repugnant, absurd, and incompetent responses to public records requests under FOIA and state transparency laws.
Age verification laws do far more than "protect children online"—they require the creation of a system that collects vast amounts of personal information from everyone. And what started as a misguided attempt to protect minors from "explicit" content online has spiraled into a tangled mess of privacy-invasive surveillance schemes affecting skincare products, dating apps, and even diet pills, threatening everyone’s right to privacy.
Earlier this month, EFF shared its recommendations for the new AI Action Plan with the National Science Foundation (NSF): First, government procurement of decision-making (ADM) technologies must be done with transparency and public accountability—no secret and untested algorithms should decide who keeps their job or who is denied safe haven in the United States. Second, Generative AI policy rules must be narrowly focused and proportionate to actual harms, with an eye on protecting other public interests. And finally, we shouldn't entrench the biggest companies and gatekeepers with AI licensing schemes.
Nashville’s Metropolitan Council is one vote away from passing an ordinance that is supposed to provide “guardrails” for connected camera systems and the many privacy problems they bring with them. But the only true way to protect Nashville’s residents against dragnet surveillance and overcriminalization is to block access to these invasive technologies altogether.
Here’s an audio version of EFFector. We hope you enjoy it!
Announcements
EFF is excited to attend CypherCon for the first time April 3-4 in Milwaukee! In addition to having an info booth at the conference, we'll be hosting an Ask the EFF panel and giving a presentation on the digital surveillance and technology impacts on various movements for bodily autonomy, namely, sex worker rights, trans liberation activism, and most recently, abortion access and reproductive rights.
EFF has gathered firsthand knowledge of tech concerns at the U.S.-Mexico border through a series of visits to communities on both sides of the border where we interviewed journalists and activists, and mapped and documented the proliferation of border surveillance tools. As a result of this work, EFF has created a traveling exhibit featuring information and photographs from several years of research and advocacy.
Join our livestream on April 3 where we'll explore digital civil liberties at the U.S.-Mexico border and the work that brought the exhibit to life.
We'll also be talking about our border exhibit and digital civil liberties at the U.S.-Mexico border at an in-person event on April 9. The event is free and will be hosted by the Internet Archive in San Francisco.
EFF is excited to be back for BSides San Francisco April 26-27! We'll be in the expo area. Also, catch our talk about tracking Dark Caracal—"the world's dumbest cyber-mercenaries"—who we've observed making a number of hilarious mistakes which have allowed us to gain insights into their activities and targets (and see just how effective they actually are despite it all).
EFF will also be back in Las Vegas for Black Hat USA in August! We're excited to be in the Business Hall, where you can come say hi and learn more about the work we are doing to defend digital freedoms.
If you're planning to submit a talk to Black Hat USA, the call for papers ends on April 2.
EFF thanks the organizations who support our work. Learn how your team can join the fight for digital rights at eff.org/thanks.
MiniLinks
"It really creates a massive chilling effect," EFF's Saira Hussain warned Newsweek about a US Citizenship and Immigration Services plan to collect social media data on prospective citizens. Green Card holders who have lived in the US for decades "could be chilled from sharing their opinions because they are concerned they are going to be vetted and denied immigration benefits such as naturalization."
Speaking to NBC News, EFF's Kit Walsh explained why manufacturers continue to fight against independent repair and how the law needs to be changed to support consumer rights.
“The data broker industry is under-regulated, opaque, and dangerous, because as you saw in the video, brokers have detailed information on billions of people, but we know relatively little about them,” EFF's Lena Cohen told Gizmodo. “You don’t know what information a data broker has on you, who they’re selling it to, and what the people who buy your data are doing with it.”
Speaking to Consumer Reports, EFF's Thorin Klosowski explained why data collection by car companies is so disturbing. “Your driving data goes to a half a dozen companies you’ve never even heard of for reasons you’d perhaps never agree to if asked directly,” he said.
EFF's José Martinez told the Chicago Reader how the confusing, secretive history of Chicago's payments for a "law enforcement search engine" called CrimeTracer is “indicative about how much of this is just business and marketing, aside from mass data collection for the purposes of state and corporate violence."
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