AI systems enable new scales of surveillance, discrimination, and manipulation. Biometric capture is expanding. Algorithmic decisions shape access to housing, credit, liberty without meaningful review.
AI innovation operates within a strong rights and freedom framework. Surveillance is constrained. Bias is measured and mitigated. Data protection is robust. People retain meaningful control over how AI affects their lives.
Flock Safety ended its Distress Detection acoustic surveillance feature after EFF advocacy and community opposition, citing civil liberties concerns and potential illegality under state eavesdropping laws. The underlying acoustic gunshot detection network remains operational.
EFF documents systemic failures in automated content moderation—including Meta's 77% misidentification of Arabic-language content—and calls for transparency, cultural competence, and appeals processes.
The FTC settled with RentGrow for $2.25 million over FCRA violations including duplicate record reporting and failing to disclose data sources, reinforcing consumer data accuracy standards for algorithmic tenant screening decisions.
Meta is testing AI-powered 'super sensing' glasses capable of continuously capturing audio and video, raising a new front in the privacy fight over AI surveillance and who gets recorded.
EFF, Demand Progress, National Consumers League, and EPIC filed formal FTC comments opposing X Corp.'s petition to waive its 2022 privacy consent decree. The groups cited X's Grok AI model being trained on user data without meaningful consent as evidence the order remains necessary.
The US Supreme Court ruled in Chatrie v. United States that Fourth Amendment privacy protections extend to location data from phone apps, even for short-term surveillance. The ruling restricts geofence warrants and establishes that app-generated records belong to users, with broad implications for digital privacy enforcement.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation has launched a campaign urging Grindr to make privacy the default and stop training AI on users' private data without explicit consent.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation revealed that local police agencies using Flock Safety automated license plate readers can subscribe to an ICE-populated hotlist to scan for immigrants.
EFF and over 60 civil society organizations sent a letter to the UK government urging a halt to the planned deployment of Facial Age Estimation technology for assessing asylum-seeking children.
EFF and partner organizations filed a complaint with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights against Paraguay for withholding information about its use of facial recognition surveillance.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation and other civil society groups have signed a letter urging the Senate Judiciary Committee not to advance the NO FAKES Act, arguing it threatens free expression and could force workers to sign away their likeness rights.
EU lawmakers have proposed a ban on AI nudifier applications, though questions remain about how such a ban will be enforced.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation has announced its support for a California bill that would ban 'surveillance pricing,' a practice where companies use personal data to algorithmically charge different prices to different consumers.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation published a newsletter and podcast highlighting the mission creep of automated license plate readers and their testimony to Congress on AI surveillance.
Following a WIRED report and public outcry, Meta released an update removing facial recognition code from its smart glasses companion app.