Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF)

EFF's mission is to ensure that technology supports freedom, justice, and innovation for all people of the world.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation is the leading nonprofit organization defending civil liberties in the digital world. Founded in 1990, EFF champions user privacy, free expression, and innovation through impact litigation, policy analysis, grassroots activism, and technology development. Our staff of 100—including lawyers, activists and technologists—works to ensure that our rights and freedoms are enhanced and protected as our reliance on technology grows worldwide. EFF works on issues at the local, state, federal, and international levels. We are supported by over 30,000 members worldwide, with 20% of members living outside of the US. Together, we can create a future where our rights not only follow us online but are even enhanced by new technology. EFF envisions a digital landscape that is secure, free, and inclusive.

Goal One: EFF fights for free expression offered by new technology—overcoming the legal, structural, and corporate obstacles blocking people from speaking their minds and accessing information and ideas.

Goal Two: Protect and strengthen fair use, innovation, open access, net neutrality, and the freedom to tinker and repair. Hold governments accountable to the public.

Goal Three: Advocate for privacy, free speech, and an open internet worldwide. Advance a wide range of digital security issues, including encryption and development of new security standards.

EFF provides professional development opportunities, encourages internal hires and promotions, and provides regular workshops for all managers to strengthen and align management practices throughout the organization.

EFF was founded in response to a basic threat to speech and privacy, and for more than thirty years, it has remained at the forefront of defending civil liberties in the digital world. Our collaborative staff of expert lawyers, technologists, and activists are continually identifying and addressing threats such as state-sponsored malware and violations of our rights around the world. In 2022, EFF used public records to investigate how Fog Data Science, LLC, a shadowy data broker sells millions of Americans’ geolocation data to state and local law enforcement agencies on the cheap, violating our Fourth Amendment right “to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures." EFF found that Fog Data Science provides law enforcement agencies throughout the country with easy and often warrantless access to the precise and continuous geolocation of hundreds of millions of Americans, collected through a wide range of smartphone apps and then aggregated by intermediary data brokers. We worked with the Associated Press for an exclusive story, which was carried by hundreds if not thousands of subscribers in English, Spanish, French, German, Polish, Chinese, and Japanese. Lawmakers from Oregon and California cited our investigation in comments to the Federal Trade Commission urging them to investigate Fog Data Science’s practices. This case highlights the urgent need for data privacy laws that limit how corporations obtain and process our data, and how that data is used by third parties. EFF provided simple instructions on our blog about how to turn off location tracking on Android and iOS devices, as well as other data privacy tips via our Surveillance Self Defense guides. This is one of our most popular blog posts. EFF continues to monitor for emerging threats to digital privacy and civil liberties, and then responds through coordinated campaigns to educate, mobilize, and/or intervene.