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.
-
New Leaked TPP Chapter Shows Countries Converging on Anti-User Copyright Takedown Rules
A draft of the Trans-Pacific Partnership‘s “Intellectual Property” chapter from May 11, 2015 has recently been leaked to journalists. This is the fourth leak of the chapter following earlier drafts of October 2014, August 2013, and February 2011. The latest leak is not available online and we don’t have a copy of it—but we have been briefed on its contents. This article, by Jeremy Malcolm, was originally published on EFF’s…
-
Save Domain Privacy
There is a serious threat to domain name privacy, and you can help. As you may have heard, an ICANN working group is considering how privacy and proxy services should work for domain names. It will cover all generic domain names, so not necessarily country domains such as .au, but including .com and the other most common domains.
-
NSW Officials Attack Researchers Who Found Internet Voting Vulnerabilities
This article, by Farbod Faraji, was originally published on EFF’s Deeplinks blog. It has been slightly modified for context. See the original article. A security flaw in New South Wales’ Internet voting system may have left as many as 66,000 votes vulnerable to interception and manipulation in a recent election, according to security researchers. Despite repeated assurances from the Electoral Commission that all Internet votes are “fully encrypted and safeguarded,”…
-
The security paradox: individual privacy versus digital driftnets
This article, by Suelette Dreyfus, University of Melbourne and Shanton Chang, University of Melbourne was originally published in The Conversation. See the original article. The great irony of the Abbott government’s plan enforce the mandatory data retention legislation is that while this is being done to make us safer, in fact it creates new data security risks for us all. While much of the debate has been dominated by the anti-surveillance…
-
Go dark today against data retention
The Government’s data retention scheme looks set to pass the Senate this week with Labor’s support. This scheme is rushed, costly, ineffective, and against the public interest. Also, absurdly, the flawed legislation leaves open numerous loopholes, which can be used to evade the scheme. This means the data retention dragnet will capture the data of innocent Australians and cost millions of dollars, while allowing those who don’t want to be…
-
Data Retention Vote This Week: Call Your MP Today!
The government is pressing ahead with its plans to rush the data retention legislation through the Parliament, with a vote due in the House of Representatives this week. This is despite them having not yet published their amendments resulting from the Intelligence & Security Committee’s recommendations. That Committee has also initiated another Inquiry, looking at the effect on journalists and their sources. This Inquiry is due to report in early…
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.