Blog Post

  • As Above Doesn’t Have to Be Below: States Should Be a Counterweight to Eroding Federal Transparency

    March 18, 2025

    We face a crisis of institutional legitimacy across the federal government. States can preserve and enhance democracy by acting as a valuable counterweight to the breakdown of federal transparency measures and implement much needed reform.

    • Access to Information

    • Democracy & Free Speech

    • Freedom of Information Act

    • Open Government

    • Surveillance Oversight

    • Analysis

  • Judge in California Age-Appropriate Design Code Case Gets the First Amendment Wrong—Again

    March 14, 2025

    Yesterday, a federal judge issued a second preliminary injunction against California’s Age-Appropriate Design Code (“CAADC”). The judge's First Amendment analysis flouted directions from the Ninth Circuit and the Supreme Court to more critically examine Big Tech’s demands for broad relief from regulation. The decision erroneously questions the constitutionality of every law giving kids special protections online—including the long-standing Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (“COPPA”).

    • Age Assurance

    • Children's Privacy

    • Data Protection

    • Platform Accountability & Governance

    • Platform Governance Laws & Regulations

    • Privacy Laws

    • The First Amendment

    • U.S. State Privacy Laws

    • Analysis

  • Trump Administration’s Attacks on the CFPB Threaten Privacy, Data Security, and the Stability of the Financial Industry

    March 7, 2025

    Since its founding in 2011, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has been a champion for consumers in the financial services industry. The Bureau has returned over $21 billion to consumers in its 14 years of operation. Yet the Trump Administration has launched a full-scale attack on the CFPB over the past month, putting the Project 2025 goal of eliminating the CFPB into action.

    • Consumer Privacy

    • Cybersecurity

    • Data Brokers

    • Data Protection

    • Data Security

    • Government Records & Privacy

    • Privacy Laws

    • U.S. Privacy Laws

    • Analysis

  • Scraping for Me, Not for Thee: Large Language Models, Web Data, and Privacy-Problematic Paradigms

    February 27, 2025

    More than just hypocrisy (though that as well), the supposed reaction to DeepSeek’s model speaks to a troubling AI company argument—one that positions mass web scraping and large-scale data ingestion, sans consent, as a necessity, and an act in which only the companies themselves are entitled to partake.

    • AI Policy

    • Artificial Intelligence and Human Rights

    • Commercial AI Use

    • Consumer Privacy

    • Cybersecurity

    • Data Brokers

    • Data Minimization

    • Data Security

    • Government AI Use

    • Platform Accountability & Governance

    • Social Media Privacy

    • Web Scraping

    • Analysis

  • Kroger’s Surveillance Pricing Harms Consumers and Raises Prices, With or Without Facial Recognition

    February 14, 2025

    Every time you step into a grocery store, you step into a machinery of data that tracks, analyzes, shares, and influences your shopping behavior. Based on shopping history and data shared from data brokers—including internet browsing history and online purchases—grocery stores may infer your age, gender, race, economic status, family makeup, health conditions, or other lifestyle characteristics.

    • Consumer Privacy

    • Data Brokers

    • Data Minimization

    • Online Advertising & Tracking

    • Analysis

  • Paying for Iris Scans: AI-Fueled Surveillance Harms

    February 6, 2025

    Hype about AI research and development is driving companies to buy people’s data where they otherwise weren’t and, conversely, to sell people’s (including customers’ and users’) data where they otherwise wouldn’t. These practices are harmful already. And their acceleration by the AI craze is poised to rapidly increase data-sharing, -selling, and -monetization threats to privacy in the coming years. This enables the repeat exploitation of people’s data and causes especially pronounced harm to vulnerable people and communities.

    • AI Policy

    • Artificial Intelligence and Human Rights

    • Commercial AI Use

    • Data Protection

    • Face Surveillance & Biometrics

    • Health and Reproductive Privacy

    • Surveillance Oversight

    • Analysis

  • These Pregnancy Apps May Be Sources for a Location Data Broker

    January 30, 2025

    Russian hackers posted on the dark web in early January with a news-making claim: they had breached notorious location data broker Gravy Analytics. On top of leaking a sample of phone pings in the White House, the Kremlin, and Vatican City, the hackers revealed another troubling possibility: the broker extracting data from a host of pregnancy and reproductive health apps.

    • Consumer Privacy

    • Data Brokers

    • Data Protection

    • Health and Reproductive Privacy

    • Analysis

  • Mass Hysteria Over Drones Flying in the Night Sky? It Didn’t Have to Be This Way

    December 20, 2024

    Recent nighttime drone sightings in New Jersey and other places have gained national attention because of the mystery that surrounds the drones—Who is flying them? What are the drones doing? Why are the drones appearing now?

    • Drones & Aerial Surveillance

    • Surveillance Oversight

    • Analysis

  • Somebody Spilled the Genes: 23andMe’s Downturn Highlights Insufficient Privacy and Data Security Safeguards for Consumer Genetic Data

    December 5, 2024

    As 23andMe likely heads towards bankruptcy or sale, many consumers are understandably concerned: what will happen to their genetic data?

    • Consumer Privacy

    • Data Brokers

    • Data Minimization

    • Data Protection

    • Health and Reproductive Privacy

    • Analysis

  • Demystifying Generative AI Disclosures

    November 27, 2024

    Generative AI is frequently used to obscure, mischaracterize, and fabricate information online.

    • AI Policy

    • Artificial Intelligence and Human Rights

    • Analysis