Notices by Electronic Frontier Foundation (eff@mastodon.social), page 62

This Miami case is "just another example of how the use of facial recognition technology can expand beyond solving murders or extreme crimes and be used to mass surveil the population," EFF’s Lisa Femia told Reason. https://reason.com/2024/01/19/miami-police-used-clearview-ai-facial-recognition-in-arrest-of-homeless-man/

“I think it’s great to see Facebook putting some of their massive resources into making it clear that end-to-end encryption is important for everybody,” EFF’s Cooper Quintin told IEEE Spectrum. https://spectrum.ieee.org/end-to-end-encryption-messenger

presenting our 2024 in/out list

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/01/effs-2024-inout-list

“There aren’t good studies—good, replicable reports—that have been done on how effective at solving and addressing crime rates these (real time crime center) technologies actually are,” EFF’s Beryl Lipton told The Daily Dot. https://www.dailydot.com/debug/age-surveillance-fusus-police-cameras/

“If you have to go to copyright owners for permission for technological innovation, you’re going to get a lot less innovation,” EFF’s Corynne McSherry told Vox. https://www.vox.com/technology/2024/1/18/24041598/openai-new-york-times-copyright-lawsuit-napster-google-sony

This week marks three years since activist and PhD student Salma al-Shehab was imprisoned for 34 years in Saudi Arabia posting online in support of women’s rights. EFF urges authorities in Saudi Arabia to immediately and safely release her. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/10/global-coalition-calls-uk-foreign-secretary-secure-release-salma-al-shehab

“With the watermelon (emoji), I think this is actually really the first time where I’ve seen it widely used as a stand-in. And that to me marks a notable uptick in censorship of Palestinian content,” EFF’s Jillian C. York told the Associated Press.
https://apnews.com/article/israel-palestinians-gaza-watermelon-symbol-protests-832c9a21b82015356f0ef99d17df2633

New to Mastodon? Here's an overview of privacy and security questions for this new way of doing social media. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/11/mastodon-private-and-secure-lets-take-look

Residents must understand "this is not simply a registry of cameras for law enforcement reference but an extensive system of data collection that requires clear policies & processes for use, data retention, & audits,” EFF’s Beryl Lipton told 404 Media.
https://www.404media.co/fusus-ai-cameras-map-local-police/

"It's not just one single snapshot of one intersection. It reveals a whole lot about a person and is definitely a violation of a person's right to privacy," EFF’s Matthew Guariglia told 10 Tampa Bay about automated license plate readers.
https://www.wtsp.com/amp/article/news/local/sarasotacounty/sarasota-license-plate-readers/67-91e42d25-6c0b-4c7c-a1f8-0aa9b3bab53b

Thanks, American Dialect Society, for choosing "enshittification" as the 2023 Word of the Year. @pluralistic's apt term describes how online platforms decay by showing users less and less of what they came for, while keeping them trapped and unable to exit for better alternatives. https://americandialect.org/2023-word-of-the-year-is-enshittification/

“We have seen an increasing number of horrific stories where people—generally women—who are trying to escape abusive domestic situations end up having their cars serve as tracking & abuse vectors,” EFF’s Cindy Cohn said in a #CES2024 Worst in Show comment. https://apnews.com/article/ces-worst-show-privacy-alexa-bmw-instacart-earbuds-aa17a5edaaf94f776d7495714a984023

Announcing: A Field Guide to Police Surveillance!

We've updated and overhauled our Street Level Surveillance hub so it has all the basic facts you need to know about the 16 most common types/categories of surveillance that local PDs use.

https://sls.eff.org/

Privacy Badger now replaces tweets embedded in articles with a “click-to-activate" placeholder. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/01/privacy-badger-puts-you-control-widgets

Ahmed was convicted in May 2018 to ten years in prison under the UAE’s draconian cybercrime law. To learn more about his case, visit https://www.eff.org/offline/ahmed-mansoor

UAE authorities confirmed this week that they have placed 84 detainees on trial and Ahmed Mansoor is suspected to be among them. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/01/uae-confirms-trial-against-84-detainees-ahmed-mansoor-suspected-among-them

We've not only tackled a number of updates to our longstanding Surveillance Self-Defense guides this year, we've also explained some new technology, and responded to various news events. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/12/surveillance-self-defense-2023-year-review

A state-sponsored disinformation campaign is unlikely to be so polite as to watermark its AI output. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/01/ai-watermarking-wont-curb-disinformation

There's lot of coverage in the media about surveillance on the U.S. side of the border, but what about the Mexico side? This Tuesday join Electronic Frontier Alliance member @effaustin 7pm CT for a discussion on surveillance at the Mexico border.
https://www.eff.org/event/eff-austin-mexican-surveillance-border

Some proposals to curb AI disinformation hinge on embedding subtle “watermarks” in images and text. But disinformation campaigns will quickly learn how to strip them out. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/01/ai-watermarking-wont-curb-disinformation