Digital Rights Are More Important Than Ever
The global pandemic has seen us online like never before. We’ve had to use technology to teach our kids, to work from home (or home from work), and to stay connected with friends and family.
And through it all we still have large corporations and politicians trying to use technology against us: spying on us, selling our data, and controlling what we can and can’t see, without our consent.
But as the world was turned upside down, something else has changed.
We’re fighting back like never before.
What We’ve Done
Despite the pandemic throwing everything into disarray, EFA has kept up the fight. We’ve been talking to you, to the media, to politicians, to businesses, and advocating tirelessly for digital rights that work for everyone, not just a privileged few.
We’ve been running the popular EFA Talks series where we discuss the issues that affect all of us with experts in the area. You can catch up on the videos here.
We’ve appeared at Senate inquries alongside like-minded groups, joining our voice with theirs to show that we’re united to fight for the rights of all of us. We’ve written submissions to inquries, and worked behind the scenes with those responsible for crafting the laws that will end up applying to all of us.
We helped people to access information under FOI, and worked with them to create original pieces of reporting like the Cracking COVIDSafe series by Royce Kurmelovs.
It’s been a long, hard slog, but we’re finally starting to see some results.
The Tide Is Turning
People are fed up with the control large corporations have over what we can see, and what we can’t stop seeing, no matter how much we plead with them to let us turn it off. We’re sick of politicians trying to pass laws that override privacy protections while doing nothing about big tech spying on everything we do online.
We’re sick of big promises about magical technobeans that don’t deliver, while they simultaneously try to break things we already have that work.
Regulators are finally taking action against the invasive, privacy destroying surveillance techniques of big tech. There are reviews happening into the Privacy Act, the Classification Code, and how our systems of laws works to protect us from the powerful. The Australian Human Rights Commission just published its landmark report into Human Rights and Technology.
And let’s not forget the mass movement that pushed back against the algorithms of robodebt, forcing an unjust system to be stopped and money taken unlawfully from innocent people returned.
Internationally, the mood has shifted. GDPR lead the way, and we see more and more privacy protecting laws coming into force across the world. People are demanding that algorithmic decisions are transparent and explainable. Face surveillance is being banned, or tightly restricted, in more and more locations.
Join Us To Shape The Future
We’re finally starting to make some great progress after years of effort. Big changes are coming, and this is just the beginning. There is still so much more to do.
Which is where you come in.
Join us to help shape the future you want to live in. Help us build a future where technology works for us, collectively, to make our lives more enjoyable. Help us break through the stranglehold of centralised power that imposes decisions on us without our consent.
Your donations help us to do more, reach more people, and support them to build a better collective future.
We also want you to get involved.
Help those close to you to understand the risks of technology, but also how it can help them. Help them to understand the benefits of a password manager, and why encryption keeps their money and medical information safe. Help them to understand why someone who says they have nothing to hide cannot be trusted to keep your secrets, and why we can have both privacy and security at the same time.