Promoting and protecting digital rights since 1994

EFA is an independent non-profit association that relies on membership subscriptions and donations. If you're concerned about digital rights in Australia, please join or donate today.

Updates from EFA

Electronic Frontiers Australia Demands Urgent Privacy Reform

Electronic Frontiers Australia (EFA) acknowledges the initial privacy reforms tabled today by the Attorney General but strongly urges more immediate, decisive, and comprehensive action to bring Australia’s privacy laws into the 21st century and to shine a bright light on our surveillance-based data-extraction digital economy. While the long-awaited and passionately fought-for proposed statutory tort and children’s code are potentially positive steps, Australia remains far behind other nations in terms of data privacy as a fundamental

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SA Social Media Ban

South Australian Premier Peter Malinauskas has looked at what eSafety are doing — including getting into stupid fights with Musk — and decided to make a big show of telling social media platforms to do what they’re doing anyway. This is already a won battle. The Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) in the U.S. sets 13 as the age below which parental consent is required for the collection of personal information from children. Because

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Supporting Families, Protecting Privacy: Why a Social Media Ban Misses the Mark

Electronic Frontiers Australia (‘EFA’) believes the Prime Minister’s proposed bill to ban young people from social media is a tactic to pave the way for unpopular Digital ID for adults. The default minimum age for social media platforms is already 13 to comply with the U.S. Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), which prohibits the collection of personal information from individuals under this age without parental consent. “Albo is like a bouncer making a big

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Privacy

Minister Shorten: Why should Australians trust the Trusted Exchange System with our personal data?

This statement was written by EFA’s chair John Pane. Tuesday 13th August 2024, Minister for Government Services, Bill Shorten released details of the government’s new Trust Exchange system to extend the recently passed – and still flawed –  Digital ID legislation. Little information outside the Minister’s speech is available. It remains unclear if this is part of the implementation of the new Digital ID initiative, or if it is a stand alone extension of this

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General

Vale Geordie Guy

We are deeply saddened to announce the sudden passing of Geordie Guy, a passionate advocate for digital rights and a dedicated former Vice-Chair and Board member of Electronic Frontiers Australia (‘EFA‘).  Geordie was a very effective Vice-Chair in the period when EFA was heavily involved in the fight against Stephen Conroy’s internet filtering proposal, which was both a hard fought and successful campaign that included regular appearances by Geordie on NSW breakfast TV, radio and

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General

EFA Weighs In on Privacy and Digital Rights News

Here’s a roundup of where Electronic Frontiers Australia (EFA) stands on key issues in the world of digital rights and privacy: EFA on Elon Musk’s X Harvesting User Data: EFA’s chair, John Pane, called the argument that users could reasonably expect their data to be used for training AI models “total BS.” “Using a person’s personal data to train an AI model is another use of personal data beyond the use for which it’s collected.

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Help fight for our digital rights

What We Do

Policy

We actively monitor a number of policy areas and specific issues. The topics below provide a detailed view of EFA’s policy positions.

Copyright

Australia’s copyright laws are outdated, inflexible and not fit for the digital age. As such, EFA is a long-standing supporter of reform of Australia’s Copyright Act.

Privacy & Security

Privacy is fundamentally about consent and control over access to information, and goes hand-in-hand with security. Privacy is a human right.

Censorship

Adults should be able to make their own informed decisions about what content they create and consume.

Encryption

Access to encryption technologies is vital for individuals and groups to be able to safeguard the security and privacy of their information.

Internet safety

Surveillance is not safety. Safety for whom, against what? This complex problem is more likely to be exacerbated, rather than solved, by measures that allow for unaccountable surveillance and the undermining of communications security.

Surveillance

EFA is committed to ensuring that Australian’s home life is not subject to arbitrary interference.

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Electronic Frontiers Australia Inc.
ABN 35 050 159 188
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