• AI & PRIVACYStates Strike Out on Their Own on AI, Privacy Regulation

    By Paige Gross

    There’s been no shortage of AI tech regulation bills in Congress, but none has passed. In the absence of congressional action, states have stepped up their own regulatory action. States have been legislating about AI since at least 2019, but bills relating to AI have increased significantly in the last two years.

  • PRIVACYBusinesses Are Harvesting Our Biometric Data. The Public Needs Assurances on Security

    By Kamran Mahroof, Amizan Omar, and Irfan Mehmood

    Visual data capturing and analysis are particularly critical compared to non-visual data. That’s why its growing use by businesses raises so many concerns about privacy and consent. While the public remains unaware of the extent to which their visual data is being captured and utilized, their information will be vulnerable to misuse or exploitation.

  • DEMOCRACY WATCHUN’s Global Digital Compact Is Looking Like an Authoritarian Dream

    By Mercedes Page

    This week, global representatives to the United Nations in New York will review the latest draft of the UN Global Digital Compact (GDC). The latest draft of the GDC is concerning. It would consolidate power within the UN, expand the reach of both the UN and national governments over digital matters and ultimately threaten the openness of the global internet.

  • PRIVACYPrivacy-Enhancing Browser Extensions Fail to Meet User Needs, New Study Finds

    By Rachel Greenstadt

    Popular web browser extensions designed to protect user privacy and block online ads are falling short, according to researchers, who are proposing new measurement methodologies to better uncover and quantify these shortcomings.

  • WMD PREPAREDNESSEvaluating U.S. Readiness to Prevent, Counter, and Respond to WMD

    Two new reports review the adequacy of U.S. strategies to prevent, counter, and respond to the threat of nuclear and chemical terrorism and highlight the strengths and limitations of U.S. efforts to prevent and counter threats from weapons of mass destruction (WMD), particularly in a changing terrorism threat landscape.

  • CHINA WATCHChina Turns to Private Hackers as It Cracks Down on Online Activists on Tiananmen Square Anniversary

    By Christopher K. Tong

    Chinese authorities restrict the flow of information online by banning search terms, scanning social media for subversive messages and blocking access to foreign media and applications that may host censored content. Control of online activity is particularly stringent around the anniversary of the protests at Tiananmen Square in 1989 that ended with a bloody crackdown on demonstrators by troops on June 4 of that year.

  • SURVIELLANCEThe Alaska Supreme Court Takes Aerial Surveillance’s Threat to Privacy Seriously, Other Courts Should Too

    In March, the Alaska Supreme Court held that the Alaska Constitution required law enforcement to obtain a warrant before photographing a private backyard from an aircraft. The government argued that the ubiquity of small aircrafts flying overhead in Alaska; the commercial availability of the camera and lens; and the availability of aerial footage of the land elsewhere, meant that Alaska residents did not have a reasonable expectation of privacy The Court divorced the ubiquity and availability of the technology from whether people would reasonably expect the government to use it to spy on them.

  • CYBERSECURITYStudy Sheds Light on Shady World of Text Message Phishing Scams

    By Matt Shipman

    Researchers have collected and analyzed an unprecedented amount of data on SMS phishing attacks, shedding light on both the scope and nature of SMS phishing operations.

  • ENCRYPTIONEuropean Court of Human Rights Confirms: Weakening Encryption Violates Fundamental Rights

    By Christoph Schmon

    In a milestone judgment—Podchasov v. Russia—the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has ruled that weakening of encryption can lead to general and indiscriminate surveillance of the communications of all users and violates the human right to privacy.

  • CYBERSECURITYCybersecurity and Data Protection: Does ChatGPT Really Make a Difference?

    Cybersecurity and data privacy have become central concerns, affecting business operations and user safety worldwide. A new analysis has looked at the various approaches to cybersecurity and data protection taken by key global players, namely the European Union, the United States, and China.

  • PRIVACYDozens of Rogue California Police Agencies Still Sharing Driver Locations with Anti-Abortion States

    In October 2023, California Attorney General Rob Bonta clarified that a 2016 state law, SB 34, prohibits California’s local and state police from sharing information collected from automated license plate readers (ALPR) with out-of-state or federal agencies. Despite the Attorney General’s definitive stance, dozens of law enforcement agencies have signaled their intent to continue defying the law by sharing ALPR information with law-enforcement agencies of states with restrictive abortion laws, putting abortion seekers and providers at risk.

  • ENCRYPTIONFighting European Threats to Encryption: 2023 Year in Review

    By Christoph Schmon, Joe Mullin, and Paige Collings

    Private communication is a fundamental human right. In the online world, the best tool we have to defend this right is end-to-end encryption. Yet throughout 2023, politicians across Europe attempted to undermine encryption, seeking to access and scan our private messages and pictures.

  • PRIVACYEFF to Supreme Court: Fifth Amendment Protects People from Being Forced to Enter or Hand Over Cell Phone Passcodes to the Police

    The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) last week asked the Supreme Court to overturn a ruling undermining Fifth Amendment protections against self-incrimination and find that constitutional safeguards prevent police from forcing people to provide or use passcodes for their cell phones so officers can access the tremendous amount of private information on phones.

  • SURVEILLANCEAbuse-Resistant Digital Surveillance

    Digital surveillance of suspects must be silent so as not to alert them. However, systems currently in use lack stringent technical mechanisms to ensure the legality of these measures. Security protocols to make legally required monitoring of digital communications more resistant to misuse and mass surveillance.

  • CYBERSECURITYFrom ********* to EZacces$! Your Browser Extension Could Grab Your Password and Sensitive Info

    By Jason Daley

    When you type a password or credit card number into a website, you expect that your sensitive data will be protected by a system designed to keep it secure. That’s not always the case.