Aggregator

経済産業省は、工場を建設する目的で平成27年（1月～12月期）に1,000平方メートル以上の用地を取得した製造業、ガス業、熱供給業、電気業の事業者を対象に「工場立地動向調査」を実施し、結果を取りまとめました。

4月5日から9日まで、韓国のソウルにおいて、日中韓自由貿易協定(FTA)交渉の第10回交渉会合(局長/局次長会合)が開催されます。

経済産業省は、昨年10月に「活力あふれる『ビンテージ・ソサエティ』の実現に向けた取組に係る研究会」を立ち上げ、検討を重ね、今般報告書をとりまとめました。

交通事故の削減や渋滞緩和、環境負荷低減等の課題解決が期待される協調ITS（※）の実現普及に必要とされる地図データベースの整備や維持・更新のコスト削減に役立つ日本発の国際規格が制定されました。

平成28年3月4日に、東京電力からありました改正電気事業法に基づく会社分割に係る申請について、このたび申請のとおり認可しました。

This year, we fought back against the return of a terrible idea that hasn’t improved with age: site blocking laws. 

More than a decade ago, Congress tried to pass SOPA and PIPA—two sweeping bills that would have allowed the government and copyright holders to quickly shut down entire websites based on allegations of piracy. The backlash was massive. Internet users, free speech advocates, and tech companies flooded lawmakers with protests, culminating in an “Internet Blackout” on January 18, 2012. Turns out, Americans don’t like government-run internet blacklists. The bills were ultimately shelved.  

But we’ve never believed they were gone for good. The major media and entertainment companies that backed site blocking in the US in 2012 turned to pushing for site-blocking laws in other countries. Rightsholders continued to ask US courts for site-blocking orders, often winning them without a new law. And sure enough, the Motion Picture Association (MPA) and its allies have asked Congress to try again. 

There were no less than three Congressional drafts of site-blocking legislation. Representative Zoe Lofgren kicked off the year with the Foreign Anti-Digital Piracy Act (FADPA). Fellow House of Representatives member Darrell Issa also claimed to be working on a bill that would make it offensively easy for a studio to block your access to a website based solely on the belief that there is infringement happening. Not to be left out, the Senate Judiciary Committee produced the terribly named Block BEARD Act.  

None of these three attempts to fundamentally alter the way you experience the internet moved too far after their press releases. But the number tells us that there is, once again, an appetite among major media conglomerates and politicians to resurrect SOPA/PIPA from the dead.  

None of these proposals fixes the flaws of SOPA/PIPA, and none ever could. Site blocking is a flawed idea and a disaster for free expression that no amount of rewriting will fix. There is no way to create a fast lane for removing your access to a website that is not a major threat to the open web. Just as we opposed SOPA/PIPA over ten years ago, we oppose these efforts.  

Site blocking bills seek to build a new infrastructure of censorship into the heart of the internet. They would enable court orders directed to the organizations that make the internet work, like internet service providers, domain name resolvers, and reverse proxy services, compelling them to help block US internet users from visiting websites accused of copyright infringement. The technical means haven’t changed much since 2012. - tThey involve blocking Internet Protocol addresses or domain names of websites. These methods are blunt—sledgehammers rather than scalpels. Today, many websites are hosted on cloud infrastructure or use shared IP addresses. Blocking one target can mean blocking thousands of unrelated sites. That kind of digital collateral damage has already happened in Austria, Italy, South Korea, France, and in the US, to name just a few.  

Given this downside, one would think the benefits of copyright enforcement from these bills ought to be significant. But site blocking is trivially easy to evade. Determined site owners can create the same content on a new domain within hours. Users who want to see blocked content can fire up a VPN or change a single DNS setting to get back online.  

The limits that lawmakers have proposed to put on these laws are an illusion. While ostensibly aimed at “foreign” websites, they sweep in any website that doesn’t conspicuously display a US origin, putting anonymity at risk. And despite the rhetoric of MPA and others that new laws would be used only by responsible companies against the largest criminal syndicates, laws don’t work that way. Massive new censorship powers invite abuse by opportunists large and small, and the costs to the economy, security, and free expression are widely borne. 

It’s time for Big Media and its friends in Congress to drop this flawed idea. But as long as they keep bringing it up, we’ll keep on rallying internet users of all stripes to fight it. 

This article is part of our Year in Review series. Read other articles about the fight for digital rights in 2025.

令和7年12月31日付　総務省人事

Throughout 2025, EFF conducted groundbreaking investigations into Flock Safety's automated license plate reader (ALPR) network, revealing a system designed to enable mass surveillance and susceptible to grave abuses. Our research sparked state and federal investigations, drove landmark litigation, and exposed dangerous expansion into always-listening voice detection technology. We documented how Flock's surveillance infrastructure allowed law enforcement to track protesters exercising their First Amendment rights, target Romani people with discriminatory searches, and surveil women seeking reproductive healthcare.

Flock Enables Surveillance of Protesters

When we obtained datasets representing more than 12 million searches logged by more than 3,900 agencies between December 2024 and October 2025, the patterns were unmistakable. Agencies logged hundreds of searches related to political demonstrations—the 50501 protests in February, Hands Off protests in April, and No Kings protests in June and October. Nineteen agencies conducted dozens of searches specifically tied to No Kings protests alone. Sometimes searches explicitly referenced protest activity; other times, agencies used vague terminology to obscure surveillance of constitutionally protected speech.

The surveillance extended beyond mass demonstrations. Three agencies used Flock's system to target activists from Direct Action Everywhere, an animal-rights organization using civil disobedience to expose factory farm conditions. Delaware State Police queried the Flock network nine times in March 2025 related to Direct Action Everywhere actions—showing how ALPR surveillance targets groups engaged in activism challenging powerful industries.

Biased Policing and Discriminatory Searches

Our November analysis revealed deeply troubling patterns: more than 80 law enforcement agencies used language perpetuating harmful stereotypes against Romani people when searching the nationwide Flock Safety ALPR network. Between June 2024 and October 2025, police performed hundreds of searches using terms such as "roma" and racial slurs—often without mentioning any suspected crime.

Audit logs revealed searches including "roma traveler," "possible g*psy," and "g*psy ruse." Grand Prairie Police Department in Texas searched for the slur six times while using Flock's "Convoy" feature, which identifies vehicles traveling together—essentially targeting an entire traveling community without specifying any crime. According to a 2020 Harvard University survey, four out of 10 Romani Americans reported being subjected to racial profiling by police. Flock's system makes such discrimination faster and easier to execute at scale.

Weaponizing Surveillance Against Reproductive Rights

In October, we obtained documents showing that Texas deputies queried Flock Safety's surveillance data in what police characterized as a missing person investigation, but was actually an abortion case. Deputies initiated a "death investigation" of a "non-viable fetus," logged evidence of a woman's self-managed abortion, and consulted prosecutors about possible charges.

A Johnson County official ran two searches with the note "had an abortion, search for female." The second search probed 6,809 networks, accessing 83,345 cameras across nearly the entire country. This case revealed Flock's fundamental danger: a single query accesses more than 83,000 cameras spanning almost the entire nation, with minimal oversight and maximum potential for abuse—particularly when weaponized against people seeking reproductive healthcare.

Feature Updates Miss the Point

In June, EFF explained why Flock Safety's announced feature updates cannot make ALPRs safe. The company promised privacy-enhancing features like geofencing and retention limits in response to public pressure. But these tweaks don't address the core problem: Flock's business model depends on building a nationwide, interconnected surveillance network that creates risks no software update can eliminate. Our 2025 investigations proved that abuses stem from the architecture itself, not just how individual agencies use the technology.

Accountability and Community Action

EFF's work sparked significant accountability measures. U.S. Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi and Rep. Robert Garcia launched a formal investigation into Flock's role in "enabling invasive surveillance practices that threaten the privacy, safety, and civil liberties of women, immigrants, and other vulnerable Americans."

Illinois Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias launched an audit after EFF research showed Flock allowed U.S. Customs and Border Protection to access Illinois data in violation of state privacy laws. In November, EFF partnered with the ACLU of Northern California to file a lawsuit against San Jose and its police department, challenging warrantless searches of millions of ALPR records. Between June 5, 2024 and June 17, 2025, SJPD and other California law enforcement agencies searched San Jose's database 3,965,519 times—a staggering figure illustrating the vast scope of warrantless surveillance enabled by Flock's infrastructure.

Our investigations also fueled municipal resistance to Flock Safety. Communities from Austin to Evanston to Eugene successfully canceled or refused to renew their Flock contracts after organizing campaigns centered on our research documenting discriminatory policing, immigration enforcement, threats to reproductive rights, and chilling effects on protest. These victories demonstrate that communities—armed with evidence of Flock's harms—can challenge and reject surveillance infrastructure that threatens civil liberties.

Dangerous New Capabilities: Always-Listening Microphones

In October 2025, Flock announced plans to expand its gunshot detection microphones to listen for "human distress" including screaming. This dangerous expansion transforms audio sensors into powerful surveillance tools monitoring human voices on city streets. High-powered microphones above densely populated areas raise serious questions about wiretapping laws, false alerts, and potential for dangerous police responses to non-emergencies. After EFF exposed this feature, Flock quietly amended its marketing materials to remove explicit references to "screaming"—replacing them with vaguer language about "distress" detection—while continuing to develop and deploy the technology.

Looking Forward

Flock Safety's surveillance infrastructure is not a neutral public safety tool. It's a system that enables and amplifies racist policing, threatens reproductive rights, and chills constitutionally protected speech. Our 2025 investigations proved it beyond doubt. As we head into 2026, EFF will continue exposing these abuses, supporting communities fighting back, and litigating for the constitutional protections that surveillance technology has stripped away.

This article is part of our Year in Review series. Read other articles about the fight for digital rights in 2025.

You might not know it, given the many headlines focused on new questions about copyright and Generative AI, but the year’s biggest copyright case concerned an old-for-the-internet question: do ISPs have to be copyright cops? After years of litigation, that question is now squarely before the Supreme Court. And if the Supreme Court doesn’t reverse a lower court’s ruling, ISPs could be forced to terminate people’s internet access based on nothing more than mere accusations of copyright infringement. This would threaten innocent users who rely on broadband for essential aspects of daily life.

The Stakes: Turning ISPs into Copyright Police

This issue turns on what courts call “secondary liability,” which is the legal idea that someone can be held responsible not for what they did directly, but for what someone else did using their product or service. The case began when music companies sued Cox Communications, arguing that the ISP should be held liable for copyright infringement committed by some of its subscribers. The Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit agreed, adopting a “material contribution” standard for contributory copyright liability (a rule for when service providers can be held liable for the actions of users). Under that standard, providing a service that could be used for infringement is enough to create liability when a customer infringes.

The Fourth Circuit’s rule would have devastating consequences for the public. Given copyright law’s draconian penalties, ISP would be under enormous pressure to terminate accounts whenever they get an infringement notice, whether or not the actual accountholder has infringed anything: entire households, schools, libraries, or businesses that share an internet connection. These would include:

• Public libraries, which provide internet access to millions of Americans who lack it at home, could lose essential service.
• Universities, hospitals, and local governments could see internet access for whole communities disrupted.
• Households—especially in low-income and communities of color, which disproportionately share broadband connections with other people—would face collective punishment for the alleged actions of a single user.

And with more than a third of Americans having only one or no broadband provider, many users would have no way to reconnect.

EFF—along with the American Library Association, the Association of Research Libraries, and Re:Create—filed an amicus brief urging the Court to reverse the Fourth Circuit’s decision, taking guidance from patent law. In the Patent Act, where Congress has explicitly defined secondary liability, there’s a different test: contributory infringement exists only where a product is incapable of substantial non-infringing use. Internet access, of course, is overwhelmingly used for lawful purposes, making it the very definition of a “staple article of commerce” that can’t be liable under the patent framework.

The Supreme Court held a hearing in the case on December 1, and a majority of the justices seemed troubled by the implications of the Fourth Circuit’s ruling. One exchange was particularly telling: asked what should happen when the notices of infringement target a university account upon which thousands of people rely, Sony’s counsel suggested the university could resolve the issue by essentially slowing internet speeds so infringement might be less appealing. It’s hard to imagine the university community would agree that research, teaching, artmaking, library services, and the myriad other activities that rely on internet access should be throttled because of the actions of a few students. Hopefully the Supreme Court won’t either.

We expect a ruling in the case in the next few months. Fingers crossed that the Court rejects the Fourth Circuit’s draconian rule.

This article is part of our Year in Review series. Read other articles about the fight for digital rights in 2025.

　9月２５日にレゾリユートドランゴンが終わったら、１０月２０日から３１日まに過去最大規模で「自衛隊統合演習（実働演習）」が行われた。陸海空３自衛隊と米豪２カ国の共同作戦演習だ。参加人員は自衛隊が約５万２３００人、車両４１８０台、艦船約６０隻、航空機約３１０機。米軍は人員約５９００人。豪軍は人員約２３０人。陸海空のほか、宇宙・サイバーや電磁波演習もあり、一部には土日を含む夜間演習が行われた。民間空港・漁港の利用も拡大され、北海道から沖縄まで８空港と３１港湾を使用。こうした訓練に..

It's no secret that digital surveillance and other tech-enabled oppressions are acute dangers for liberation movement workers. The rising tides of tech-fueled authoritarianism and hyper-surveillance are universal themes across the various threat models we consider. EFF's Surveillance Self-Defense project is a vital antidote to these threats, but it's not all we do to help others address these concerns. Our team often receives questions, requests for security trainings, presentations on our research, and asks for general OPSEC (operations security, or, the process of applying digital privacy and information security strategies to a current workflow or process) advising. This year stood out for the sheer number and urgency of requests we fielded. 

Combining efforts across our Public Interest Technology and Activism teams, we consulted with an estimated 66 groups and organizations, with at least 2000 participants attending those sessions. These engagements typically look like OPSEC advising and training, usually merging aspects of threat modeling, cybersecurity 101, secure communications practices, doxxing self-defense, and more. The groups we work with are often focused on issue-spaces that are particularly embattled at the current moment, such as abortion access, advocacy for transgender rights, and climate justice. 

Our ability to offer realistic and community-focused OPSEC advice for these liberation movement workers is something we take great pride in. These groups are often under-resourced and unable to afford typical infosec consulting. Even if they could, traditional information security firms are designed to protect corporate infrastructure, not grassroots activism. Offering this assistance also allows us to stress-test the advice given in the aforementioned Surveillance Self-Defense project with real-world experience and update it when necessary. What we learn from these sessions also informs our blog posts, such as this piece on strategies for overcoming tech-enabled violence for transgender people, and this one surveying the landscape of digital threats in the abortion access movement post-Roe. 

There is still much to be done. Maintaining effective privacy and security within one's work is an ongoing process. We are grateful to be included in the OPSEC process planning for so many other human-rights defenders and activists, and we look forward to continuing this work in the coming years. 

This article is part of our Year in Review series. Read other articles about the fight for digital rights in 2025.

EFF’s attorneys, activists, and technologists don’t just do the hard, endless work of defending our digital civil liberties — they also spend a lot of time and effort explaining that work to the public via media interviews. 

EFF had thousands of media mentions in 2025, from the smallest hyperlocal outlets to international news behemoths. Our work on street-level surveillance — the technology that police use to spy on our communities — generated a great deal of press attention, particularly regarding automated license plate readers (ALPRs). But we also got a lot of ink and airtime for our three lawsuits against the federal government: one challenging the U.S. Office of Personnel Management's illegal data sharing, a second challenging the State Department's unconstitutional "catch and revoke" program, and the third demanding that the departments of State and Justice reveal what pressure they put on app stores to remove ICE-tracking apps.

Other hot media topics included how travelers can protect themselves against searches of their devices, how protestors can protect themselves from surveillance, and the misguided age-verification laws that are proliferating across the nation and around the world, which are an attack on privacy and free expression.

On national television, Matthew Guariglia spoke with NBC Nightly News to discuss how more and more police agencies are using private doorbell cameras to surveil neighborhoods. Tori Noble spoke with ABC’s Good Morning America about the dangers of digital price tags, as well as with ABC News Live Prime about privacy concerns over OpenAI’s new web browser.

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In a sampling of mainstream national media, EFF was cited 33 times by the Washington Post, 16 times by CNN, 13 times by USA Today, 12 times by the Associated Press, 11 times by NBC News, 11 times by the New York Times, 10 times by Reuters, and eight times by National Public Radio. Among tech and legal media, EFF was cited 74 times by Privacy Daily, 35 times by The Verge, 32 times by 404 Media, 32 times by The Register, 26 times by Ars Technica, 25 times by WIRED, 21 times by Law360, 21 times by TechCrunch, 20 times by Gizmodo, and 14 times by Bloomberg Law.

Abroad, EFF was cited in coverage by media outlets in nations including Australia, Bangladesh, Belgium, Canada, Colombia, El Salvador, France, Germany, India, Ireland, New Zealand, Palestine, the Philippines, Slovakia, South Africa, Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, the United Arab Emirates, and the United Kingdom. 

EFF staffers spoke to the masses in their own words via op-eds such as: 

• The Well News, Feb. 6: “Net Neutrality Needs to Be Preserved” (Corynne McSherry) 
• Ms. Magazine, Feb. 25: “Age-Verification Laws Seek to Erase LGBTQ+ Identity from the Internet” (Rin Alajaji & Paige Collings) 
• Teen Vogue, April 25: “How to Protect Your Online Privacy: 3 Simple Steps to Stay Safe on the Internet” (Paige Collings) 
• La Silla Vacía (Colombia), April 25: “Big Tech y financiación del periodismo: dependencia, trampas y caminos viables / Big Tech and journalism funding: dependence, traps and viable roads” (Veridiana Alimonti) 
• The Register, Aug. 21: “The UK Online Safety Act is about censorship, not safety” (Paige Collings) 
• Bay Area News Group, Aug. 21: "Trump is building ‘one interface to rule them all.’ It’s terrifying.” (Cindy Cohn) 
• Bay Area News Group, Dec. 6: "San Jose’s vast surveillance network is watching you. Be afraid." (Lisa Femia)

And we ruled the airwaves on podcasts including: 

• Firewalls Don’t Stop Dragons, Jan. 6: “ALPRs Are Everywhere” (Adam Schwartz & Gowri Nayar) 
• CNN Terms of Service, Jan. 7: “If TikTok is Banned, What Happens to Creators and Fans?” (Eva Galperin) 
• Richie & John, Jan. 9: “Meta's Content Changes: What It Means for LGBTQ+ Rights” (Jillian York) 
• The Privacy Insider, Feb. 14: “Signal and Noise: The New Administration, Privacy, and Our Digital Rights” (Cindy Cohn) 
• Tech Policy Press Podcast, Feb. 23: “Evaluating the First Systemic Risk and Audit Reports Under the Digital Services Act” (Svea Windwehr) 
• Tech Policy Press Podcast, March 27: “About that Signal Chat” (Cooper Quintin) 
• CNN Terms of Service, April 1: “Think Before You Ring: Keeping Home Surveillance Safe” Matthew Guariglia 
• Malwarebytes Lock & Code, April 6: “Is your phone listening to you?” (Lena Cohen) 
• Adult Site Broker, April 22: Age verification discussion (Lisa Femia) 
• Plutopia News Network, May 19: “Settling the Digital Frontier” (Cindy Cohn) 
• Guy Kawasaki’s Remarkable People, July 2: “Who Defends Your Digital Rights?” (Cindy Cohn) 
• Tech Policy Press Podcast, July 13: “How US States Are Shaping AI Policy Amid Federal Debate and Industry Pushback” (Hayley Tsukayama)
• KALW Your Legal Rights, July 23: "Privacy in the Digital Age" (Sophia Cope & Tori Noble) 
• StateScoop Priorities Podcast, July 30: “Cop or AI? This tech makes it hard to tell” (Matthew Guariglia) 
• Malwarebytes' Lock and Code, Aug. 11: “‘The worst thing’ for online rights: An age-restricted grey web” (Jason Kelley) 
• Firewalls Don’t Stop Dragons, Sept. 1: “Meet Rayhunter” (Cooper Quintin) 
• It Could Happen Here, Sept. 9: “ICE Partners with Israeli Phone Hacking Spyware” (Cooper Quintin) 

We're grateful to all the intrepid journalists who keep doing the hard work of reporting accurately on tech and privacy policy, and we encourage them to keep reaching out to us at press@eff.org.

This article is part of our Year in Review series. Read other articles about the fight for digital rights in 2025.

Drone as first responder (DFR) adoption really took off in 2025. Though the concept has been around since 2018, this year saw more normalization of the technology, its integration into more real-time crime center structures, and the implementation of automated deployment of drones.

A DFR program features a fleet of camera-equipped drones, which can range from just a couple to dozens or more. These are deployed from a launch pad in response to 911 calls and other calls for service, sometimes operated by a drone pilot or, increasingly, autonomously directed to the call location. The appeal is the promise of increased “situational awareness” for officers headed to a call. This video offers a short explanation of DFR, and for a list of all of the cities we know use drones, including DFR programs, check out EFF’s Atlas of Surveillance. 

Major Moves from the FAA and Forthcoming Federal Issues

In order to deploy a drone beyond where it can be seen, operators need to receive a waiver from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), and all DFR programs require this. Police departments and technology vendors have complained that the process takes too long, and in May, FAA finalized reworked requirements, leading to a flood of waiver requests. An FAA spokesperson reported that in the first two months of the new waiver process, it had approved 410 such waivers, already accounting for almost a third of the approximately 1,400 DFR waivers that had ever been granted.

The federal government made other major moves on the drone front this year. A month after the new waivers went to effect, President Trump issued an Executive Order with aspirations for advancing the country’s drone industry. And at the end of the year, one of the largest drone manufacturers in the world and one of the biggest purveyors of law enforcement drones, DJI, will be banned from launching new products in the U.S. unless the federal government conducts a security audit that was mandated by the National Defense Authorization Act. However, at the moment, it doesn’t seem like that audit will happen, and if it doesn’t, it won’t be surprising to see other drone manufacturers leveraging the ban to boost their own products. 

Automated Drone Deployment and Tech Integrations

Early iterations of drone use required a human operator, but this year, police drone companies began releasing automated flying machines that don’t require much human intervention at all. New models can rely on AI and automated directions to launch and direct a drone. 

This article is part of our Year in Review series. Read other articles about the fight for digital rights in 2025.

This was the year we saw DFR integrated with other tools and tech companies teamed up to bring even more powerful surveillance. Flock Safety added automated license plate readers (ALPR) to their drones. Axon and Skydio built on the partnership they launched in 2024. Drone manufacturer Brinc teamed up with Motorola Solutions on a DFR program. Drone company Paladin teamed up with a company called SkyeBrowse to add 3-D mapping of the environment to their list of features. 

DFR also is increasingly part of the police plans for real-time crime centers, meaning that the footage being captured by these flying cameras is being integrated into other streams and analyzed in ways that we’re still learning about. 

Transparency Around DFR Deployments

Transparency around adoption, use, and oversight is always crucial, particularly when it comes to police surveillance, and EFF has been tracking the growth of DFR programs across the country. We encourage you to use your local public records laws to investigate them further. Examples of the kinds of requests and the responsive documents people have already received — including flight logs, policies, and other information — can be found on MuckRock. 

The Problem with Drones

Flying cameras are bad enough. They can see and record footage from a special vantage point, capturing video of your home, your backyard, and your movements that should require clear policies around retention, audits, and use, including when the cameras shouldn’t be recording. We’re also seeing that additional camera analysis and other physical features that can be added (so-called “payloads”) — like thermal cameras and even tear gas — can make drones even more powerful and that police technology companies are encouraging DFR as part of surveillance packages.

It's important that next year we all advocate for, and enforce, standards in adopting and using these DFRs. Check the Atlas to see if they are used where you live and learn more about drones and other surveillance tools on EFF’s Street-Level Surveillance Hub.

This article is part of our Year in Review series. Read other articles about the fight for digital rights in 2025.

　日本ジャーナリスト会議（ＪＣＪ）沖縄と、沖縄大学の島袋隆志合同ゼミは10月25日、公開学習会「沖縄戦下の記者と戦後80年ジャーナリズム」を那覇市の同大学で開いた。元ＮＨＫディレクターで立教大学大学院客員教授の宮本聖二さんらが、沖縄戦のさなかに発行された新聞「沖縄新報」を題材にメディアの戦争責任と、現代につながる報道の課題について考えた＝写真＝。壕内で沖縄新報　宮本さんはＮＨＫ沖縄放送局勤務時代の１９９３年、沖縄新報の存在を知り、番組「一枚の新聞～沖縄戦下の記者たち」を手がけ..

This year, you may have heard EFF sounding off about our civil liberties on NPR, BBC Radio, or any number of podcasts. But we also started sharing our voices directly with listeners in 2025. In June, we revamped EFFector, our long-running electronic newsletter, and launched a new audio edition to accompany it.

Providing a recap of the week's most important digital rights news, EFFector's audio companion features exclusive interviews where EFF's lawyers, activists, and technologists can dig deeper into the biggest stories in privacy, free speech, and innovation. Here are just some of the best interviews from EFFector Audio in 2025.

Unpacking a Social Media Spying Scheme

Earlier this year, the Trump administration launched a sprawling surveillance program to spy on the social media activity of millions of noncitizens—and punish those who express views it doesn't like. This fall, EFF's Lisa Femia came onto EFFector Audio to explain how this scheme works, its impact on free speech, and, importantly, why EFF is suing to stop it.

"We think all of this is coming together as a way to chill people's speech and make it so they do not feel comfortable expressing core political viewpoints protected by the First Amendment," Femia said.

Challenging the Mass Surveillance of Drivers

But Lisa was hardly the only guest talking about surveillance. In November, EFF's Andrew Crocker spoke to EFFector about Automated License Plate Readers (ALPRs), a particularly invasive and widespread form of surveillance. ALPR camera networks take pictures of every passing vehicle and upload the location information of millions of drivers into central databases. Police can then search these databases—typically without any judicial approval—to instantly reconstruct driver movements over weeks, months, or even years at a time.

"It really is going to be a very detailed picture of your habits over the course of a long period of time," said Crocker, explaining how ALPR location data can reveal where you work, worship, and many other intimate details about your life. Crocker also talked about a new lawsuit, filed by two nonprofits represented by EFF and the ACLU of Northern California, challenging the city of San Jose's use of ALPR searches without a warrant.

Similarly, EFF's Mario Trujillo joined EFFector in early November to discuss the legal issues and mass surveillance risks around face recognition in consumer devices.

Simple Tips to Take Control of Your Privacy

Online privacy isn’t dead. But tech giants have tried to make protecting it as annoying as possible. To help users take back control, we celebrated Opt Out October, sharing daily privacy tips all month long on our blog. In addition to laying down some privacy basics, EFF's Thorin Klosowski talked to EFFector about how small steps to protect your data can build up into big differences.

"This is a way to kind of break it down into small tasks that you can do every day and accomplish a lot," said Klosowski. "By the end of it, you will have taken back a considerable amount of your privacy."

User privacy was the focus of a number of EFFector interviews. In July, EFF's Lena Cohen spoke about what lawmakers, tech companies, and individuals can do to fight online tracking. That same month, Matthew Guariglia talked about precautions consumers can take before bringing surveillance devices like smart doorbells into their homes.

Digging Into the Next Wave of Internet Censorship

One of the most troubling trends of 2025 was the proliferation of age verification laws, which require online services to check, estimate, or verify users’ ages. Though these mandates claim to protect children, they ultimately create harmful censorship and surveillance regimes that put everyone—adults and young people alike—at risk.

This summer, EFF's Rin Alajaji came onto EFFector Audio to explain how these laws work and why we need to speak out against them.

"Every person listening here can push back against these laws that expand censorship," she said. "We like to say that if you care about internet freedom, this fight is yours."

This was just one of several interviews about free speech online. This year, EFFector also hosted Paige Collings to talk about the chaotic rollout of the UK's Online Safety Act and Lisa Femia (again!) to discuss the abortion censorship crisis on social media.

You can hear all these episodes and future installments of EFFector's audio companion on YouTube or the Internet Archive. Or check out our revamped EFFector newsletter by subscribing at eff.org/effector!

This article is part of our Year in Review series. Read other articles about the fight for digital rights in 2025.

In 2025, elected officials across the country began treating surveillance technology purchases differently: not as inevitable administrative procurements handled by police departments, but as political decisions subject to council oversight and constituent pressure. This shift proved to be the most effective anti-surveillance strategy of the year.

Since February, at least 23 jurisdictions fully ended, cancelled, or rejected Flock Safety ALPR programs (including Austin, Oak Park, Evanston, Hays County, San Marcos, Eugene, Springfield, and Denver) by recognizing surveillance procurement as political power, not administrative routine.

Legacy Practices & Obfuscation

For decades, cities have been caught in what researchers call "legacy procurement practices": administrative norms that prioritize "efficiency" and "cost thresholds" over democratic review. 

Vendors exploit this inertia through the "pilot loophole." As Taraaz and the Collaborative Research Center for Resilience (CRCR) note in a recent report, "no-cost offers" and free trials allow police departments to bypass formal procurement channels entirely. By the time the bill comes due, the surveillance is already normalised in the community, turning a purchase decision into a "continuation of service" that is politically difficult to stop.

This bureaucracy obscures the power that surveillance vendors have over municipal procurement decisions. As Arti Walker-Peddakotla details, this is a deliberate strategy. Walker-Peddakotla details how vendors secure "acquiescence" by hiding the political nature of surveillance behind administrative veils: framing tools as "force multipliers" and burying contracts in consent agendas. For local electeds, the pressure to "outsource" government decision-making makes vendor marketing compelling. Vendors use "cooperative purchasing" agreements to bypass competitive bidding, effectively privatizing the policy-making process. 

The result is a dangerous "information asymmetry" where cities become dependent on vendors for critical data governance decisions. The 2025 cancellations finally broke that dynamic.

The Procurement Moment

This year, cities stopped accepting this "administrative" frame. The shift came from three converging forces: audit findings that exposed Flock's lack of safeguards, growing community organizing pressure, and elected officials finally recognizing that saying "no" to a renewal was not just an option—it was the responsible choice.

When Austin let its Flock pilot expire on July 1, the decision reflected a political judgment: constituents rejected a nationwide network used for immigration enforcement. It wasn't a debate about retention rates; it was a refusal to renew.

These cancellations were also acts of fiscal stewardship. By demanding evidence of efficacy (and receiving none) officials in Hays County, Texas and San Marcos, Texas rejected the "force multiplier" myth. They treated the refusal of unproven technology not just as activism, but as a basic fiduciary duty. In Oak Park, Illinois, trustees cancelled eight cameras after an audit found Flock lacked safeguards, while Evanston terminated its 19-camera network shortly after. Eugene and Springfield, Oregon terminated 82 combined cameras in December. City electeds have also realized that every renewal is a vote for "vendor lock-in." As EPIC warns, once proprietary systems are entrenched, cities lose ownership of their own public safety data, making it nearly impossible to switch providers or enforce transparency later.

The shift was not universal. Denver illustrated the tension when Mayor Mike Johnston overrode a unanimous council rejection to extend Flock's contract. Council Member Sarah Parady rightly identified this as "mass surveillance" imposed "with no public process." This is exactly why procurement must be reclaimed: when treated as technical, surveillance vendors control the conversation; when recognized as political, constituents gain leverage.

Cities Hold the Line Against Mass Surveillance

EFF has spent years documenting how procurement functions as a lever for surveillance expansion, from our work documenting Flock Safety's troubling data-sharing practices with ICE and federal law enforcement to our broader advocacy on surveillance technology procurement reform. The 2025 victories show that when cities understand procurement as political rather than technical, they can say no. Procurement power can be the most direct route to stopping mass surveillance. 

As cities move into 2026, the lesson is clear: surveillance is a choice, not a mandate, and your community has the power to refuse it. The question isn't whether technology can police more effectively; it's whether your community wants to be policed this way. That decision belongs to constituents, not vendors.

This article is part of our Year in Review series. Read other articles about the fight for digital rights in 2025.

Defending encryption has long been a bedrock of our work. Without encryption, it's impossible to have private conversations or private data storage. This year, we’ve seen attacks on these rights from all around the world. 

Europe Goes All in On Breaking Encryption, Mostly Fails (For Now)

The European Union Council has repeatedly tried to pass a controversial message scanning proposal, known as “Chat Control,” that would require secure messaging providers to scan the contents of messages. Every time this has come up since it was first introduced in 2022, it got batted down—because no matter how you slice it, client-side scanning breaks end-to-end encryption. The Danish presidency seemed poised to succeed in passing Chat Control this year, but strong pushback from across the EU caused them to reconsider and rework their stance. In its current state, Chat Control isn’t perfect, but it at least includes strong language to protect encryption, which is good news for users. 

Meanwhile, France tried to pass its own encryption-breaking legislation. Unlike Chat Control, which pushed for client-side scanning, France took a different approach: allowing so-called “ghost participants,” where law enforcement could silently join encrypted chats. Thankfully, the French National Assembly did the right thing and rejected this dangerous proposal. 

It wasn’t all wins, though.

Perhaps the most concerning encryption issue is still ongoing in the United Kingdom, where the British government reportedly ordered Apple to backdoor its optional end-to-end encryption in iCloud. In response, Apple disabled one of its strongest security features, Advanced Data Protection, for U.K. users. After some back and forth with the U.S., the U.K. allegedly rewrote the demand, to clarify it was limited to only apply to British users. That doesn’t make it any better. Tribunal hearings are planned for 2026, and we’ll continue to monitor developments.

Speaking of developments to keep an eye on, the European Commission released its “Technology Roadmap on Encryption” which discusses new ways for law enforcement to access encrypted data. There’s a lot that could happen with this roadmap, but let’s be clear, here: EU officials should scrap any roadmap focused on encryption circumvention and instead invest in stronger, more widespread use of end-to-end encryption. 

U.S. Attempts Fall Flat

The U.S. had its share of battles, too. The Senate re-introduced the STOP CSAM Act, which threatened to compromise encryption by requiring encrypted communication providers to have knowledge about what sorts of content their services are being used to send. The bill allows encrypted services to raise a legal defense—but only after they’ve been sued. That's not good enough. STOP CSAM would force encryption providers to defend against costly lawsuits over content they can't see or control. And a jury could still consider the use of encryption to be evidence of wrongdoing. 

In Florida, a bill ostensibly about minors' social media use also just so happened to demand a backdoor into encryption services—already an incredible overreach. It went further, attempting to ban disappearing messages and grant parents unrestricted access to their kids’ messages as well. Thankfully, the Florida Legislature ended without passing it.

It is unlikely these sorts of attempts to undermine encryption will suddenly stop. But whatever comes next, EFF will continue to stand up for everyone's right to use encryption to have secure and private online communications. 

This article is part of our Year in Review series. Read other articles about the fight for digital rights in 2025.

　10月21日正式に発足した高市内閣は、日米会談、日中会談などと続いた外交日程をこなし、期待感もあって、65～70％近い支持率を示した。だが、衆院予算委員会が始まると「台湾有事」をめぐって７日、「集団的自衛権」発動と自衛隊の「参戦」につながる「存立危機事態」に言及。大騒ぎになった。この発言について、新聞各紙の多くは「中国との戦争も辞さないとの表明」「あまりにも軽率で不用意」（東京）、「ことの重大さへの自覚を欠いた答弁」（毎日）などと批判的に報じたが、逆に「国民守る抑止力を高め..

State and federal lawmakers have introduced multiple proposals in 2025 to curtail or outright block children and teenagers from accessing legal content on the internet. These lawmakers argue that internet and social media platforms have an obligation to censor or suppress speech that they consider “harmful” to young people. Unfortunately, in many of these legislative debates, lawmakers are not listening to kids, whose experiences online are overwhelmingly more positive than what lawmakers claim. 

Fortunately, EFF has spent the past year trying to make sure that lawmakers hear young people’s voices. We have also been reminding lawmakers that minors, like everyone else, have First Amendment rights to express themselves online. 

These rights extend to a young person’s ability to use social media both to speak for themselves and access the speech of others online. Young people also have the right to control how they access this speech, including a personalized feed and other digestible and organized ways. Preventing teenagers from accessing the same internet and social media channels that adults use is a clear violation of their right to free expression. 

On top of violating minors’ First Amendment rights, these laws also actively harm minors who rely on the internet to find community, find resources to end abuse, or access information about their health. Cutting off internet access acutely harms LGBTQ+ youth and others who lack familial or community support where they live. These laws also empower the state to decide what information is acceptable for all young people, overriding parents’ choices. 

Additionally, all of the laws that would attempt to create a “kid friendly” internet and an “adults-only” internet are a threat to everyone, adults included. These mandates encourage an adoption of invasive and dangerous age-verification technology. Beyond creepy, these systems incentivize more data collection, and increase the risk of data breaches and other harms. Requiring everyone online to provide their ID or other proof of their age could block legal adults from accessing lawful speech if they don’t have the right form of ID. Furthermore, this trend infringes on people’s right to be anonymous online, and creates a chilling effect which may deter people from joining certain services or speaking on certain topics

EFF has lobbied against these bills at both the state and federal level, and we have also filed briefs in support of several lawsuits to protect the First Amendment Rights of minors. We will continue to advocate for the rights of everyone online – including minors – in the future.

This article is part of our Year in Review series. Read other articles about the fight for digital rights in 2025.

It’s been a great year to be on EFF’s membership team. There's no better feeling than hanging out with your fellow digital freedom supporters and being able to say, “Oh yeah, and we’re suing the government!” We’ve done that a lot this year—and that’s all thanks to people like you. 

As a token of appreciation for supporting EFF’s mission to protect privacy and free expression online for all people, we put a lot of care into meeting the members who make our work possible. Whether it’s hosting meetups, traveling to conferences, or finding new and fun ways to explain what we’re fighting for, connecting with you is always a highlight of the job.

EFF Speakeasy Meet Ups

One of my favorite perks we offer for EFF members is exclusive invites for Speakeasy meet ups. It’s a chance for us to meet the very passionate members who fuel our work! 

This year, we hosted Speakeasies across the country while making the rounds at conferences. We met supporters in Mesa, AZ during CactusCon; Pasadena, CA during SCALE; Portland, OR during BSidesPDX; New York, NY during HOPE and BSidesNYC; and Seattle, WA during our panel at the University of Washington. 

Of course, we also had to host a Speakeasy in our home court—and for the first time it took place in the South Bay Area in Mountain View, CA at Hacker Dojo! There, members of EFF’s D.C. Legislative team spoke about EFF’s legislative efforts and how they’ll shape digital rights for all. We even recorded that conversation for you to watch on YouTube or the Internet Archive. 

And we can’t forget about our global community! Our annual online Speakeasy brought together members around the world for a conversation and Q&A with our friends at Women in Security and Privacy (WISP) about online behavioral tracking and the data broker industry. We heard and answered great questions about pushing back on online tracking and what legislative steps we can take to strengthen privacy. 

Summer Security Conferences

Say what you will about Vegas—nothing compares to the energy of seeing thousands of EFF supporters during the summer security conferences: BSidesLV, Black Hat USA, and DEF CON. This year over one thousand people signed up to support the digital freedom movement in just that one week.  

If you’ve ever seen us at a conference, you know the drill: a table full of EFF staff frantically handing out swag, answering questions, and excitedly saying hi to everyone that stops by and supports our work. This year it was especially fun to see how many people brought their Rayhunter devices. 

And of course, it wouldn’t be a trip to Vegas without EFF’s annual DEF CON Poker Tournament. This year 48 supporters and friends played for money, glory, and the future of the web—all with EFF’s very own playing cards. For the first time ever, the jellybean trophy went to the same winner two years in a row! 

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EFFecting Change Livestream Series

We ramped up our livestream series, EFFecting Change, this year with a total of six livestreams covering topics including the future of social media with guests from Mastodon, Bluesky, and Spill; EFF’s 35th Anniversary and what’s next in the fight for privacy and free speech online; and generative AI, including how to address the risks of the technology while protecting civil liberties and human rights online. 

We’ve got more in store for EFFecting Change in 2026, so be sure to stay up-to-date by signing up for updates! 

EFF Awards Ceremony

EFF is at the forefront of protecting users from dystopian surveillance and unjust censorship online. But we’re not the only one doing this work, and we couldn’t do it without other organizations in the space. So, every year we like to award those who are courageously championing the digital rights movement. 

This year we gave out three awards: the EFF Award for Defending Digital Freedoms went to Software Freedom Law Center, India, the EFF Award for Protecting Americans’ Data went to Erie Meyer, and the EFF Award for Leading Immigration and Surveillance Litigation went to Just Futures Law. You can watch the EFF Awards here and see photos from the event too!

And It's All Thanks to You

That doesn’t even cover all of it! We even got to celebrate 35 years of EFF in July with limited-edition challenge coins and all-new member swag—plus a livestream covering EFF’s history and what’s next for us.

Grab EFF's 35th Anniversary t-shirt when you become a member today!

As the new year approaches, I always like to look back on the bright spots—especially the joy of hanging out with this incredible community. The world can feel hectic, but connecting with supporters like you is a reminder of how much good we can build when we work together. 

Many thanks to all of the EFF members who joined forces with us this year. If you’ve been meaning to join, but haven’t yet, year-end is a great time to do so. 

This article is part of our Year in Review series. Read other articles about the fight for digital rights in 2025.