Should the police be able to force Google to turn over identifying information on every phone within a certain geographic area—potentially hundreds or thousands of devices—just because a crime occurred there? We don’t think so. As we argued in an… Read More ›
Tag Archive for ‘Locational Privacy’
EFF Asks Virginia Supreme Court to Rein in Indiscriminate Collection and Storage of License Plate Information
Like law enforcement agencies across the country, the police in Fairfax, Virginia, use automated license plate readers (ALPRs) to indiscriminately scan and record every passing car. The ALPRs don’t simply check for speeding, or outstanding tickets—instead, they store detailed information… 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 ›
Courts Issue Rulings in Two Cases Challenging Law Enforcement Searches of License Plate Databases
This week, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals issued an opinion in United States v. Yang, a case challenging the search of an automated license plate reader database under the Fourth Amendment. Although the court, citing EFF’s amicus brief, recognized… Read More ›
Google-Fitbit Merger Would Cement Google’s Data Empire
Google buying another tech company isn’t new. But Google’s proposed acquisition of Fitbit poses an extraordinary threat to competition and user privacy. Users face having their Fitbit information added to Google’s already large and invasive data pool, and a world… Read More ›
EFF, ACLU & CDT Argue Five Months of Warrantless Covert 24/7 Video Surveillance Violates Fourth Amendment
Should the fact that your neighbors can see the outside of your house mean the police can use a camera to record everything that happens there for more than five months? We don’t think so either. That’s why we joined… Read More ›
Governments Haven’t Shown Location Surveillance Would Help Contain COVID-19
Governments around the world are demanding new dragnet location surveillance powers to contain the COVID-19 outbreak. But before the public allows their governments to implement such systems, governments must explain to the public how these systems would be effective in… Read More ›
Google Says It Doesn’t 'Sell' Your Data. Here’s How the Company Shares, Monetizes, and Exploits It.
“Google will never sell any personal information to third parties; and you get to decide how your information is used.” – Sundar Pichai Sound familiar? Although big tech companies like Google keep the lights on by harvesting and monetizing your… Read More ›
Courts Grapple with a Sea Change in Fourth Amendment Law After Carpenter v US: Year in Review 2019
Last year, the Supreme Court issued a landmark opinion in a case we’ve written about a lot, called Carpenter v. United States, ruling that the Fourth Amendment protects data generated by our phones called historical cell-site location information or CSLI…. Read More ›
Victory: California Orders State Audit of Automated License Plate Readers
A California legislative committee today voted to direct the State Auditor to launch a probe into the use of automated license plate readers (ALPRs) by law enforcement agencies. The audit will include the first comprehensive statewide survey of which agencies… Read More ›