Privacy & Surveillance
Protecting the privacy vital to free thought and expression
Our laws restricting surveillance and data collection are struggling to keep pace with new technology that can track and reveal our expressive lives in ever more detail, and with new business models that rely on the aggregation and exploitation of this information.
Our work is meant to illuminate the scope and impact of surveillance by government and private corporations, promote stronger legal protections for privacy, and enrich public understanding of the interplay between privacy and the freedoms of inquiry, speech, and association.
Featured
Deep Dive
Pegasus spyware was used to hack reporters’ phones. I’m suing its creators
When you’re infected by Pegasus, spies effectively hold a clone of your phone – we’re fighting back
By Nelson Rauda ZablahLATEST NEWS & ANALYSIS
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Press Statement
Incarcerated Individuals and Advocacy Groups Challenge California County’s Policy of Digitizing and Destroying Jail Mail
Knight Institute, Electronic Frontier Foundation, and Social Justice Legal Foundation say that the policy violates the rights to free speech and privacy
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Press Statement
U.S. Supreme Court Declines to Hear Wikimedia Foundation’s Challenge to NSA Mass Surveillance
Wikimedia Foundation, Knight Institute, and ACLU call on Congress to limit the NSA’s surveillance of internet communications
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Deep Dive
NYC’s nightmarish plan to prohibit physical mail in jails should be abandoned
A move to digitize this correspondence has proved in the past to dramatically undermine the expressive and privacy rights of both incarcerated and unincarcerated people
By Stephanie Krent
LITIGATION & ADVOCACY
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Lawsuit
A.B.O. Comix v. San Mateo County
A lawsuit challenging the digitization and destruction of mail in San Mateo County’s jails
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FOIA Lawsuit
Knight Institute v. Department of State
A FOIA lawsuit seeking records relating to the Biden administration’s review of the use of social media identifiers in visa vetting
RESEARCH
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Essays and Scholarship
Privacy, Autonomy, and the Dissolution of Markets
Pathways from platform capitalism
By Kiel Brennan-Marquez & Daniel Susser -
Essays and Scholarship
Licensure as Data Governance
Moving toward an industrial policy for artificial intelligence
By Frank Pasquale -
Essays and Scholarship
The Keys to the Kingdom
Mathias Vermeulen on overcoming GDPR concerns to unlock access to platform data for independent researchers
By Mathias Vermeulen
Events
Columbia Journalism School - Joseph D. Jamail Lecture Hall
Spyware and the Press
A discussion about the threat that malicious surveillance technology poses to press freedom around the world
New York, NY
A Conversation with Edward Snowden
A post-event video featuring Snowden talking about surveillance, security, and whistleblowers
Columbia University, New York, NY
Protecting Privacy in the "Golden Age" of Surveillance
Joan Feigenbaum and Robert S. Litt discuss encryption, surveillance, law enforcement, and privacy with Knight Institute Senior Staff Attorney Alex Abdo