Regardless of your opinion about Google, their suite of collaborative document editing tools provides a powerful resource in this tumultuous time. Across the country, grassroots groups organizing mutual aid relief work in response to COVID-19 and legal aid as part… Read More ›
Tag Archive for ‘COVID-19 and Digital Rights’
Germany’s Corona-Warn-App: Frequently Asked Questions
This blog post is co-authored with Least Authority, a Berlin-based tech company committed to advancing digital security and preserving privacy as a fundamental human right. This week, Germany’s COVID tracing app finally went live. As governments around the world have… Read More ›
Bracelets, Beacons, Barcodes: Wearables in the Global Response to COVID-19
In their efforts to contain the spread of the pandemic, governments around the world are rolling out body-worn devices (“wearables”) to assist in fighting the virus. Some governments want a technological silver bullet to solve the public health crisis. But… Read More ›
Surveillance Self-Defense: Attending Protests in the Age of COVID-19
In the wake of nationwide protests against the police killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, we urge protestors to stay safe, both physically and digitally. Our Surveillance Self Defense (SSD) Guide on attending a protest offers practical tips on… Read More ›
Don’t Mix Policing with COVID-19 Contact Tracing
Over the weekend, Minnesota’s Public Safety Commissioner analogized COVID-19 contact tracing with police investigation of arrested protesters. This analogy is misleading and dangerous. It also underlines the need for public health officials to practice strict data minimization—including a ban on… Read More ›
Immunity Passports Are a Threat to Our Privacy and Information Security
With states beginning to ease shelter-in-place restrictions, the conversation on COVID-19 has turned to questions of when and how we can return to work, take kids to school, or plan air travel. Several countries and U.S. states, including the UK,… Read More ›
Two Federal COVID-19 Privacy Bills: A Good Start and a Misstep
COVID-19, and containment efforts that rely on personal data, are shining a spotlight on a longstanding problem: our nation’s lack of sufficient laws to protect data privacy. Two bills before Congress attempt to solve this problem as to COVID-19 data…. Read More ›
International Proposals for Warrantless Location Surveillance To Fight COVID-19
Time and again, governments have used crises to expand their power, and often their intrusion into citizens’ lives. The COVID-19 pandemic has seen this pattern play out on a huge scale. From deploying drones or ankle monitors to enforce quarantine… Read More ›
New Low for a Bad Patent: Patent Troll Sues Ventilator Company
Patent trolls don’t care much about innovation. Their lawsuits and threats are attempts at rent-seeking; they’re demanding money from people who make, use, or sell technology just for doing what they were already doing—for crossing the proverbial “bridge” that the… Read More ›
No to California Bill on Verified Credentials of COVID-19 Test Results
EFF opposes a California bill, A.B. 2004, that would authorize the issuers of COVID-19 test results to do so with digital verifiable credentials. This bill would take us a step towards national digital identification, create information security risks, exacerbate social… Read More ›