Favorite A Washington state trial court has shot down local municipalities’ effort to keep automated license plate reader (ALPR) data secret. The Skagit County Superior Court in Washington rejected the attempt to block the public’s right to access data gathered by Flock Safety cameras, protecting access to information under the Washington Public Records Act (PRA).…
All posts tagged Transparency
NYC lets AI gamble with Child Welfare
Favorite The Markup revealed in its reporting last month that New York City’s Administration for Children’s Services (ACS) has been quietly deploying an algorithmic tool to categorize families as “high risk”. Using a grab-bag of factors like neighborhood and mother’s age, this AI tool can put families under intensified scrutiny without proper justification and oversight.…
In Memoriam: John L. Young, Cryptome Co-Founder
Favorite John L. Young, who died March 28 at age 89 in New York City, was among the first people to see the need for an online library of official secrets, a place where the public could find out things that governments and corporations didn’t want them to know. He made real the idea –…
State AGs Must Act: EFF Expands Call to Investigate Crisis Pregnancy Centers
Favorite Back in January, EFF called on attorneys general in Florida, Texas, Arkansas, and Missouri to investigate potential privacy violations and hold accountable crisis pregnancy centers (CPCs) that engage in deceptive practices. Since then, some of these centers have begun to change their websites, quietly removing misleading language and privacy claims; the Hawaii legislature is…
EFF Goes to Court to Uncover Police Surveillance Tech in California
Favorite Which surveillance technologies are California police using? Are they buying access to your location data? If so, how much are they paying? These are basic questions the Electronic Frontier Foundation is trying to answer in a new lawsuit called Pen-Link v. County of San Joaquin Sheriff’s Office. EFF filed a motion in California Superior…
New IPANDETEC Report Shows Panama’s ISPs Still Lag in Protecting User Data
Favorite Telecom and internet service providers in Panama are entrusted with the personal data of millions of users, bearing a responsibility to not only protect users’ privacy but also be transparent about their data handling policies. Digital rights organization IPANDETEC has evaluated how well companies have lived up to their responsibilities in ¿Quien Defiende Tus…
EFF Presses Federal Circuit To Make Patent Case Filings Public
Favorite Federal court records belong to everyone. But one federal court in Texas lets patent litigants treat courts like their own private tribunals, effectively shutting out the public. When EFF tried to intervene and push for greater access to a patent dispute earlier this year, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas…
NETMundial+10 Multistakeholder Statement Pushes for Greater Inclusiveness in Internet Governance Processes
Favorite A new statement about strengthening internet governance processes emerged from the NETMundial +10 meeting in Brazil last month, strongly reaffirming the value of and need for a multistakeholder approach involving full and balanced participation of all parties affected by the internet—from users, governments, and private companies to civil society, technologists, and academics. But the…
EFF Seeks Greater Public Access to Patent Lawsuit Filed in Texas
Favorite You’re not supposed to be able to litigate in secret in the U.S. That’s especially true in a patent case dealing with technology that most internet users rely on every day. Unfortunately, that’s exactly what’s happening in a case called Entropic Communications, LLC v. Charter Communications, Inc. The parties have made so much of…
Victory! EFF Helps Resist Unlawful Warrant and Gag Order Issued to Independent News Outlet
Favorite Over the past month, the independent news outlet Indybay has quietly fought off an unlawful search warrant and gag order served by the San Francisco Police Department. Today, a court lifted the gag order and confirmed the warrant is void. The police also promised the court to not seek another warrant from Indybay in…