# 2024 Year in Review EFF

Source: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/12/2024-year-review
Kiwi News: https://news.kiwistand.com/stories/2024-Year-in-Review-EFF?index=0x67699a70c66f0a76460058378a24a1ede066fb5dfce9690026fd3d2da77b00e7b616c26a
Submitted by misha on 2024-12-23 UTC, 1 upvote, 0 comments

## Summary

EFF's end-of-year review argues that law and policy on digital rights should be careful, precise, practical, and technologically neutral, so that protections apply regardless of which technology is used. The review says generative AI dominated public discussion in 2024, and that EFF will oppose any use of technology against people's rights. Other work it highlights includes efforts on the EU's rules for large online platforms, legal defense for citizen journalists targeted for posting city council meeting clips, and outreach to the U.S. Congress on press freedom and laws that would cut kids off from information.

## Article

It is our end-of-year tradition at EFF to look back at the last 12 months of digital rights. This year, the number and diversity of our reflections attest that 2024 was a big year.

If there is something uniting all the disparate threads of work EFF has done this year, it is this: that law and policy should be careful, precise, practical, and technologically neutral. We do not care if a cop is using a glass pressed against your door or the most advanced microphone: they need a warrant.

For example, much of the public discourse this year was taken up by generative AI. It seemed that this issue was a Rorschach test for everyone’s anxieties about technology - be they privacy, replacement of workers, surveillance, or intellectual property. Ultimately, it matters little what the specific technology is: whenever technology is being used against our rights, EFF will oppose that use. It’s a future-proof way of protecting us. If we have privacy protections, labor protections, and protections against government invasions, then it does not matter what technology takes over the public imagination, we will have recourse against its harms.

But AI was only one of the issues we took on this past year. We’ve worked on ensuring that the EU’s new rules regarding large online platforms respect human rights. We’ve filed countless briefs in support of free expression online and represented plaintiffs in cases where bad actors have sought to silence them, including citizen journalists who were targeted for posting clips of city council meetings online.

With your help, we have let the United States Congress know that its citizens are for protecting the free press and against laws that would cut kids off from vital sources of information. We’ve spoken to legislators, reporters, and the public to make sure everyone is informed about the benefits and dangers of new technologies, new proposed laws, and legal precedent.

Even all of that does not capture everything we did this year. And we did not—indeed, we cannot—do it without you. Your support keeps the lights on and ensures we are not speaking just for EFF as an organization but for our thousands of tireless members. Thank you, as always.

We will update this page with new stories about digital rights in 2024 every day between now and the new year.

Defending Encryption in the U.S. and Abroad EFF in the Press The U.S. Supreme Court Continues its Foray into Free Speech and Tech The Atlas of Surveillance Expands Its Data on Police Surveillance Technology EFF Continued to Champion Users’ Online Speech and Fought Efforts to Curtail It We Stood Up for Access to the Law and Congress Listened Police Surveillance in San Francisco Fighting For Progress On Patents Celebrating Digital Freedom with EFF Supporters Surveillance Self-Defense EU Tech Regulation—Good Intentions, Unclear Consequences The Growing Intersection of Reproductive Rights and Digital Rights Electronic Frontier Alliance Fought and Taught Locally Global Age Verification Measures While the Court Fights Over AI and Copyright Continue, Congress and States Focus On Digital Replicas State Legislatures Are The Frontline for Tech Policy Fighting Automated Oppression Exposing Surveillance at the U.S.-Mexico Border Federal Regulators Limit Location Brokers from Selling Your Whereabouts Fighting Online ID Mandates AI and Policing Kids Online Safety Act Continues to Threaten Our Rights Online Deepening Government Use of AI and E-Government Transition in Latin America Decentralization Reaches a Turning Point