UPDATE: Victory! Acting Mayor Janey pulled the plug on the RFP, thanks to your advocacy. When we fight, we win! A request for proposals (RFP) published on the City of Boston’s website in April, first reported by DigBoston, raises extremely alarming concerns...
The National Institute for Justice, the research arm of the Department of Justice, has published an advertisement for a grant seeking proposals for projects that deploy artificial intelligence to reduce recidivism among the five million people under the control of parole and...
A showdown between data privacy advocates and major tech firms is heating up in Congress, with one side arguing for robust regulations outlawing data discrimination and other exploitative practices, and the other pushing for a federal law to wipe out state level...
Last week, tech industry giants testified before the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation about how the federal government should safeguard consumer privacy—and not a single consumer advocate was invited. Apparently fearful of meaningful state action that could tie the hands...
Last week’s Supreme Court decision in Carpenter is one of the most important privacy rulings in the Court’s history. In a 5-4 opinion written by Chief Justice Roberts, the Court sided with Mr. Carpenter and his ACLU lawyers, holding that the government...
Reporter Zach Whittaker noticed that on December 29, Amazon quietly posted its year-end transparency report, providing the public with basic information about government demands for its users information during the first six months of 2017. The report confirms that law enforcement continues...
The Massachusetts House is set to vote on a criminal justice reform bill today. Advocates of new surveillance powers are pushing hard to pass wiretap amendments on the House side, despite their defeat in the Senate late last month. Please take action...
A few weeks ago, the local NPR station in Boston published a piece I wrote about Apple’s new face recognition identification system on the iPhone X. My primary argument was that consumers should reject the technology, in an effort to send a...
Tomorrow is Election Day—finally. There’s a lot at stake in this contest, but no matter who wins, those of us who care about civil rights and civil liberties will continue to have our work cut out for us. Here are three...
On Friday October 21, 2016, the people of the United States learned two scary lessons: 1. It’s relatively easy for rogue actors to turn consumer technologies against their owners and wield them as weapons; and 2. Doing so may shut off access to...