EFF action alerts

Privacy fears should never stand in the way of healthcare. That's why this common-sense bill will require businesses and non-governmental organizations to act responsibly with personal information concerning reproductive health care. Specifically, it restricts them from collecting, using, retaining, or disclosing reproductive health information that isn't essential to providing the service someone asks them for.

The Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) would censor the internet and would make government officials the arbiters of what young people can see online. It will likely lead to age verification, handing more power, and private data, to third-party identity verification companies like Clear or ID.me.

The government should not have the power to decide what topics are "safe" online for young people, and to force services to remove and block access to anything that might be considered unsafe for children. This isn’t safety—it’s censorship.

Under the guise of curbing data collection by foreign governments, the RESTRICT Act (Senate Bill 686) would set the stage for a restriction on the use of TikTok, but not do nearly enough to truly protect our private information. Due to undefined mitigation measures coupled with a vague enforcement provision, the bill could also criminalize common practices like using a VPN or side-loading to install a prohibited app.

While several California cities have banned government use of face recognition technology, state lawmakers haven't taken the same approach. A new bill this session, A.B. 642 would normalize and incentivize police use of this technology across the state.

It shouldn't be against the law to provide an encrypted app. But if the STOP CSAM Act passes, it would make it a crime to offer encryption, because it could "facilitate" the sharing of illegal child abuse material (CSAM)—even if there's no evidence that a platform or service intended to do so. The law would undermine digital security for all internet users, impacting private messaging and email app providers, social media platforms, cloud storage providers, and many other internet intermediaries and online services.

We all have the right to have private conversations. They’re vital for free and informed self-government. When we want to have private conversations online, encryption makes it possible. Yet Congress is debating, for a third time, the EARN IT Act (S. 1207)—a bill that would threaten encryption, and instead seek to impose universal scanning of our messages, photos, and files.

The EARN IT Act invites all 50 states to regulate internet services, hoping state legislatures will follow a set of “best practices” set by a federal commission stacked with law enforcement agencies. The bill’s supporters want to wipe true end-to-end encryption from the internet, and replace it with scanning software that puts us all in a permanent criminal lineup.

At the local, state, and federal level, people across the country are urging politicians to ban the government’s use of face surveillance because it is inherently invasive and dangerous. Many U.S. cities have done so, including San Francisco and Boston. Now is our chance to end the federal government’s use of this spying technology.

Tell your Senators and Representatives they must pass the Facial Recognition and Biometric Technology Moratorium Act, S.681/HR.1404 . It was recently introduced by Senators Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Representatives Pramila Jayapal (WA-07), Ayanna Pressley (MA-07), Rashida Tlaib (MI-12), Earl Blumenauer (OR-03), Cori Bush (MO-01), Greg Casar (TX-35), Adriano Espaillat (NY-13), Barbara Lee (CA-12), Eleanor Holmes Norton (DC), Jamaal Bowman (NY-16), and Jan Schakowsky (IL-09). This important bill would be a critical step to ensuring that mass surveillance systems don’t use your face to track, identify, or harm you. The bill would ban the use of face surveillance by the federal government, as well as withhold certain federal funds for local and state governments that use the technology.

The UK government has had years to revise its Online Safety Bill into a proposal that wouldn’t harm users’ basic rights. It has failed to do so. As drafted, the Bill undermines end-to-end encryption and would make UK businesses and individuals less safe online—including the very groups that the bill intends to protect. Proposals like this threaten a basic human right: our right to have a private conversation. We know that several members are on the fence about this issue. Please help by telling them to protect encryption.