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No on Prop 24
Blog

Californians Should Vote No on Prop 24

Oct 16, 2020
​​​​​​​Proposition 24 won’t strengthen privacy rights for Californians. Instead, it will undermine protections in current law and increase the burden on people to protect themselves—in ways that will disproportionately harm poor people and people of color. Please vote NO on Prop 24. Read More
A photograph of surveillance camera in the foreground with a heat map of a gathered crowd in the background.
Case

Williams v. City and County of San Francisco (Illegal Surveillance)

Oct 07, 2020
In late May and early June 2020 during mass demonstrations following George Floyd's murder, the San Francisco Police Department (SFPD), in defiance of a 2019 city ordinance backed by the ACLU and other civil rights organizations, illegally tapped into a sprawling private camera network to conduct live mass surveillance of protesters. SFPD did so without first going through a legally... Read More
Woman operating mobile application standing atop scooter
Case

Sanchez v. Los Angeles Department of Transportation (Data Surveillance)

Sep 11, 2020
Renting an electric scooter should not give the government the right to trace your every move — where you start, where you end, and all stops, twists, and turns in between. But that's the situation in the City of Los Angeles where electric scooter rental companies are required to provide real-time and historic GPS tracking data to city officials. Beginning in late 2017, communities across Calif... Read More
Text in a bubble that says "Hey Twitter, stop letting law enforcement exploit your platform and target protesters." ACLU logo
News

ACLU Demands Twitter Take Immediate Action to Stop Developers from Facilitating Government Surveillance of Users

Jul 09, 2020
ACLU Foundation of Northern California and ACLU Minnesota along with Color of Change and MediaJustice have sent a letter to Twitter this morning demanding that they take immediate action to prevent its developers from facilitating government surveillance of its users. Dataminr, a Twitter developer, has provided law enforcement with tweets by activists organizing and participating in ongoing demons... Read More
ACLU of Northern CA
News

ACLU Statement on Microsoft Face Recognition Moratorium

Jun 11, 2020
In January 2019, the ACLU led a coalition of over 80 civil rights groups calling on Amazon, Google, and Microsoft to stop selling face recognition technology to law enforcement. Google heeded these calls early on. Microsoft instead responded with a legislative effort in multiple states to legitimize law enforcement use of the technology. The ACLU, together with a coalition of groups, earlier this ... Read More
ACLU of Northern CA
News

ACLU Statement on Amazon Face Recognition Moratorium

Jun 10, 2020
Amazon today announced a one-year moratorium on its sale of face recognition technology to law enforcement. The American Civil Liberties Union two years ago revealed that the company is secretly selling this technology to police, and has since led a coalition effort calling on the company to stop fueling police abuses and civil rights violations with the sale of this technology to law enforcement. Read More
Image of a black woman's face
Blog

Microsoft Says it Supports Racial Justice. Will it Refuse to Power Discriminatory Police Surveillance?

Jun 10, 2020
As major tech companies rush to claim solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement, they’re being rightfully called out for the ways their products and workplace conditions actively undermine the rights and safety of Black people. IBM has listened and stopped development of face recognition, a technology that supercharges police surveillance and has repeatedly been shown to disproportionately m... Read More