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.
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Police using mobile phone tower dumps for fishing expeditions
Fairfax Media is today reporting that Australian police are receiving metadata dumps from mobile phone towers. These data dumps provide information about “the identity, activity and location of any phone that connects to targeted cell towers over a set span of time, generally an hour or two. A typical dump covers multiple towers, and mobile providers, and can net information about thousands of mobile phones.” Access to this information is…
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What Does Copyright Have to Do With ‘Free Trade’?
This article, by Jeremy Malcolm, was originally published on EFF’s Deeplinks Blog. Jeremy is a former EFA Board Member and is currently Senior Global Policy Analyst at EFF. See the original article. What Does Copyright Have to Do With “Free Trade”? Unpicking the Undemocratic Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership Democracy makes the job of our trade negotiators much harder. The light of democratic oversight makes it difficult for them to…
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Next tranche of new surveillance powers [Updated]
[Update: in a doorstop interview on 2nd July, Attorney-General Brandis said the following: ATTORNEY-GENERAL: Legislation that I will be introducing into the Senate in the week after next will give effect to the recommendations, the 21 recommendations in Chapter-Four of the Joint Parliamentary Committee Report on Intelligence and Security. That was, as I say, a bipartisan report. That legislation will primarily be directed to agency powers and also aspects of…
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A small step towards fair use; a giant leap for the visually impaired
EFA welcomes the government’s announcement that Australia has finally signed the Marrakesh Treaty to Facilitate Access to Published Works by Visually Impaired Persons and Persons with Print Disabilities. This treaty is the result of many years of hard work from disability advocates and public institutions. It will give Australia’s blind and visually impaired persons (BVIPs) access to books, and allow accessible works created in Australia to benefit BVIPs overseas. It achieves…
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Debrief from Brazil: 3rd June
The Internet Society of Australia, in conjunction with auDA, APNIC and the Federal Department of Communications are holding a ‘debrief’ on the Net Mundial: Global Multistakeholder Meeting on the Future of Internet Governance, held last month in Sao Paolo, Brazil. This session will cover what happened, and what we can take away from the meeting, particularly to future meetings such as the next ICANN meeting in London, next month. Speakers…
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Win a copy of No Place to Hide by Glenn Greenwald
We’ve got six copies of Glenn Greenwald’s recently published book, No Place to Hide: Edward Snowden, the NSA and the Surveillance State to give away. Simply Join EFA or setup a recurring donation before the end of the financial year (30th June) to go into the weekly draw. Already an EFA member? Renew your membership (log-in first) or refer a friend or colleague to Join EFA (email us at memberadmin [at]…
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.