civil liberties

The government can’t seize your data — but it can buy it

Congress needs to ban the government from buying up sensitive geolocation data entirely — not just preventing its seizure.

Court finds some fault with UK police force’s use of facial recognition tech

Civil rights campaigners in the UK have won a legal challenge to South Wales Police’s (SWP) use of facial recognition technology. The win on appeal is being hailed as a “world-first”

Decrypted: iOS 13.5 jailbreak, FBI slams Apple, VCs talk cybersecurity

It was a busy week in security. Newly released documents shown exclusively to TechCrunch show that U.S. immigration authorities used a controversial cell phone snooping technology known as a “st

ICE used ‘stingray’ cell phone snooping tech hundreds of times since 2017

Newly released documents show U.S. immigration authorities have used a secretive cell phone snooping technology hundreds of times across the U.S. in the past three years. The documents, obtained throu

COVID-19 could have its own PATRIOT Act, but we need privacy guarantees

The government must mobilize to combat this invisible enemy, but we must also have parameters for how data is protected and used.

Israel passes emergency law to use mobile data for COVID-19 contact tracing

Israel has passed an emergency law to use mobile phone data for tracking people infected with COVID-19 including to identify and quarantine others they have come into contact with and may have infecte

ACLU asks court to release a secret order forcing Facebook to wiretap Messenger

Earlier this year, the U.S. government tried to force Facebook to secretly recode its Messenger app to allow the feds to listen into an encrypted, real-time voice call on suspected members associated

UK keeps up its legal losing streak over mass surveillance

Yet another defeat in the courts for the UK government's use of mass surveillance as an indiscriminate and, as it frequently turns out, unlawful investigatory tool.

European MEPs want to ban states from backdooring encryption

The European parliament's Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE) has put forward a proposal that would amend the EU's charter of fundamental rights to extend privacy rights to t

Facebook tells developers to not use data for surveillance

In response to pressure from the American Civil Liberties Union, Color of Change and the Center for Media Justice, Facebook announced today that it will clarify its developer policy to explicitly proh

Liberty is crowdfunding a legal challenge to UK surveillance law

Civil liberties group Liberty has launched a crowdfunding campaign to fund a U.K. High Court challenge to the bulk powers contained within a new domestic surveillance law.

Why Obama Was Never Going To Be A Civil Liberties Champion

Barack Obama was never going to be a champion of civil liberties; he leads a very old and quickly growing strain of the Democratic party that prioritizes the collective good over individual rights. Th