Blog
We can be pretty sure that each new day will bring two things: new threats to our civil liberties, and new stories of people standing up for their rights and winning. Behind every court ruling is a person. Behind every landmark law is a movement. Read the stories and hear the voices that ground our work.
Our Vision to Achieve True Public Safety
Feb 17, 2022
We can increase equality, justice, and safety without resorting to criminalization and surveillance.
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Recordings Show the California Highway Patrol’s Aerial Surveillance of Racial Justice Protests
Nov 16, 2021
Our year-long investigation uncovered records that show California Highway Patrol (CHP) spying on protesters for racial justice in cities up and down the state
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Diners Beware: That Meal May Cost You Your Privacy and Security
Jul 27, 2021
Scanning QR codes instead of ordering from a physical menu is a way for companies to insert all the machinery of the online advertising ecosystem between you and your food.
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Grassroots Activists are Leading the Fight to Stop Face Recognition. It’s Time for Congress to Step Up, Too.
Jul 17, 2021
Tech companies and police forces would like us to believe that there is nothing we can do to stop harmful surveillance technologies like face recognition. We reject that narrative.
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California's “Equity” Algorithm Could Leave 2 Million Struggling Californians Without Additional Vaccine Supply
May 06, 2021
As most Californians become eligible to receive a COVID-19 vaccine, California is rightly centering equity in distributing doses to communities that have been hardest hit. But our analysis of the state’s most recent plans suggests that the Department of Public Health’s vaccine-distribution algorithm may fall short, leaving millions of the neediest Californians without additional supply.
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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.
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Facebook Blocked My Ad, Mislabeled it "Sexually Explicit"
Sep 23, 2020
My wife and I have made music together for the past 8 years, in an independent band named Unsung Lilly. We are passionate about creating epic, empowering pop music.
As a same-sex couple, we have been heartened recently by the improved representation of LGBTQ people on television, and we are grateful that most people we meet are accepting of our relationship. It’s enough to make you think that m...
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ACLU Calls On Tech Companies to End Their Alliance with ICE and CBP
Sep 09, 2020
Tech companies provide access to the sensitive personal information used to destroy communities and undermine the rights that we work every day to protect. Join the #NoTechforICE campaign.
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Banning Dangerous Surveillance Tech is One Step Towards Wider Police Reform in Santa Cruz
Jun 22, 2020
Facial recognition and predictive policing technology fuel the exact type of intrusive and racially discriminatory policing that people are protesting against.
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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...
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Hey Clearview, Your Misleading PR Campaign Doesn’t Make Your Face Surveillance Product Any Less Dystopian
Feb 10, 2020
In the last few weeks, a company called Clearview has been in the news for marketing a reckless and invasive facial recognition tool to law enforcement. The company claims the tool can identify people in billions of photos nearly instantaneously. And Exhibit A in support of their claim to law enforcement that their app is accurate? An “accuracy test” that Clearview boasts was modeled on the ACLU’s...
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California Just Blocked Police Body Cam Use of Face Recognition
Oct 11, 2019
The state of California just made it clear: Face recognition surveillance isn’t inevitable. We can — and should — fight hard to protect our communities from this dystopian technology.
Building on San Francisco’s first-of-its-kind ban on government face recognition, California this week enacted a landmark law that blocks police from using body cameras for spying on the public. The state-wide law...
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