Analysis

  • Google Ad Topics: Another Cog in the Surveillance Advertising Machine

    After falling behind its competitors and facing criticism for previous plans to phase out third-party cookies, Google now touts Ad Topics for its benefits to user privacy and transparency. But Google’s new tool is far from a perfect solution to the harms of surveillance advertising.

    • Competition and Privacy

    • Consumer Privacy

    • Analysis

  • Generative AI and Elections: The Approaching Train Wreck

    If you already find parsing through election ads and campaign speeches to get to the truth difficult, just wait for what is ahead with a 2024 election season filled with generative AI generated ads. Misinformation and disinformation already exist in our elections, but generative AI will exacerbate this problem, leaving voters flooded with information and unable to sort out what is real.

    • AI Policy

    • Artificial Intelligence and Human Rights

    • Commercial AI Use

    • Consumer Privacy

    • Cybersecurity

    • Data Protection

    • Democracy & Free Speech

    • Election Security

    • Government AI Use

    • International Privacy

    • Voter Privacy

    • Web Scraping

    • Analysis

  • The many forms of Generative AI

    Generative AI tools have captured the attention of industry, government, and the press throughout the last year for both substantial change and substantial concern. In May, EPIC published Generating Harms, a report breaking down real and current harms that the widespread availability and increasing popularity of Generative AI tools is having.

    • AI Policy

    • Artificial Intelligence and Human Rights

    • Commercial AI Use

    • Government AI Use

    • Analysis

  • Draft California Risk Assessment Regulations Are a Promising Start

    The comments include proposals on cybersecurity audits, risk assessments, and automated decision-making systems and urge the agency to protect Californians by drawing on strong existing frameworks and ensuring that consumers’ rights to opt out and receive information are easy to exercise.

    • AI in the Criminal Justice System

    • AI Policy

    • Artificial Intelligence and Human Rights

    • Commercial AI Use

    • Government AI Use

    • Screening & Scoring

    • Analysis

  • AI Harm Report: Iowa’s Book Ban Implementation Illustrates How New Tech Enables Bad Policy 

    EPIC Senior Counsels Calli Schroeder and Ben Winters explain how generative AI takes the already-bad practice of book banning and makes it worse. Book banning is bad enough when it’s humans deciding which content should be censored. Leaving that determination to generative AI opens the door for a program—one that is unable to accurately read context—to irrationally limit what we are able to access and engage with.

    • Access to Information

    • AI Policy

    • Artificial Intelligence and Human Rights

    • Democracy & Free Speech

    • Analysis

  • Data Minimization: Regulating the Ineffective, Irrelevant, and Invasive Practice of Surveillance Advertising

    The benefits of surveillance advertising have often been promised, but never proven. This blog post shows that the harmful practice of targeted ads do not provide consumers with benefits that outweigh those harms.

    • Consumer Privacy

    • Data Protection

    • Enforcement of Privacy Laws

    • Analysis

  • The State of State AI Laws: 2023

    The 2023 legislative session has seen a surge in state AI laws proposed across the U.S., surpassing the number of AI laws proposed or passed in past legislative sessions.

    • AI Policy

    • Artificial Intelligence and Human Rights

    • Commercial AI Use

    • Government AI Use

    • Privacy Laws

    • Screening & Scoring

    • Analysis

  • Data Minimization: Bolstering The FTC’s Health Data Privacy Authority

    Among the categories of personal data collected seemingly without restriction in the United States, consumer health data is both particularly sensitive and particularly lucrative. In recent years, there has been a dramatic increase in telehealth, health and fitness apps, and other online health products, resulting in an enormous volume of health data collection and abuse that falls outside of the narrow protections of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA).

    • Consumer Privacy

    • Data Protection

    • Enforcement of Privacy Laws

    • Health Privacy

    • Analysis

  • ODNI Report on Intelligence Agencies’ Data Purchases Underscores Urgency of Reform

    The report found that the IC is collecting increasing amounts of CAI—including sensitive information like location data—but does not know how much CAI it is collecting, what types, or even what it is doing with that data.

    • Intelligence Surveillance

    • Surveillance Oversight

    • Analysis

  • Don’t Take It at Face Value: Why TSA’s Implementation of Facial Recognition is More Dangerous Than You Think

    Facial recognition is an invasive and dangerous surveillance technology. When the government moves forward with pilot programs that will, if fully implemented, subject millions of people on a daily basis to the technology that should give us all pause.

    • Face Surveillance & Biometrics

    • Surveillance Oversight

    • Traveler Screening & Border Surveillance

    • Analysis