 Welcome to the audio version of the Electronic Frontier Foundation's Affector Newsletter. This is a pilot project to give people a new way to learn about digital rights and offer more accessibility to our newsletter. This is the audio version of Affector Volume 32, Issue 30, published on January 28, 2021, entitled Here's How Biden Should Address Technology Issues. The editor of this issue is Activism Project Manager Lindsey Oliver and is read by me, Member Outreach Assistant Christian Romero. Affector is a semi-weekly newsletter on digital rights issues. Inside, EFF summarizes and links to updates, announcements, blog posts, and news stories to help keep readers on the bleeding edge of their digital rights. Remember that each of the following items has a link to a more detailed description that you can read in the online version of Affector. Let's start with some top features. EFF's top recommendations for the Biden Administration EFF has prepared a transition memo for the incoming Biden Administration, outlining our recommendations for how it should act to protect everyone's civil liberties in a digital world. While we hope to work with the new administration on a wide range of policies that affect digital rights in the coming years, this memo focuses on the areas that need immediate attention. Why EFF doesn't support bans on private use of face recognition? Government and private use of face recognition technology both present a wealth of concerns. Privacy, safety, and amplification of carceral bias are just some of the reasons why you must ban government use. But what about private use? There are many menacing ways for private entities to use face recognition, but not all private use of face recognition technology undermines human rights. That's why we support strict limits on private use of face recognition, but do not support a ban. Next up, here's some EFF updates. Facebook's laughable campaign against Apple is really against users and small businesses. In response to Apple's new app tracking transparency feature on iPhones, which requires apps to request permission from users before tracking them across apps and websites or sharing their information with and from third parties, Facebook launched a campaign touting its invasive tracking practices as a lifeline for small businesses. This is a laughable attempt from Facebook to distract you from its poor track record of anti-competitive behavior and privacy issues as it tries to derail pro-privacy changes from Apple that are bad for Facebook's bottom line. And two federal programs that fund police surveillance tech. The new administration can do two things immediately that would help block some of the more nefarious ways that police departments get surveillance technology. It should further roll back the infamous 1033 program of the National Defense Authorization Act, which allows local police to inherit military gear, and it should bar the use of funds seized by civil asset forfeiture to fund these technologies. For many, the Arab Spring isn't over. As we consider the role that social media and online platforms have played in the US in recent months, it is both instructive and essential to remember the events that took place during the Arab Spring a decade ago and how policies and decisions made at the time helped to strengthen, or in some cases handicap, those democratic movements. It's business as usual at WhatsApp. WhatsApp users have recently started seeing a new pop-up screen requiring them to agree to its new terms and privacy policy in order to keep using the app. The good news is that overall, this update does not make any extreme changes to how WhatsApp shares its data with its parent company Facebook. The bad news is that those extreme changes actually happened over four years ago when WhatsApp updated its privacy policy in 2016 to allow for significantly more data sharing and ad targeting with Facebook. California has a new COVID exposure notification app. California joined dozens of other states and countries in launching its COVID-19 exposure notification app, CA Notify, built on Google and Apple's exposure notification API. While the Bluetooth technology that powers California's app and others like it are the most promising approach to COVID exposure notification, there are still important privacy and equity concerns. And ultimately, COVID tracking apps like these can only be effective if deployed along widespread testing and interview-based contact tracing. Fair use for me, but not for thee. Author dependent on fair use abuses copyright law to silence critics. The latest entry in our takedown haul of shame involves Ernest Klein's novel, Ready Player Two, criticizing tweets and the DMCA. If your books are famous for making fair use of pop culture, it would probably behoove you to understand that people using portions of your books and critiques of them are also making fair uses. Next up, some EFF announcements. Launch for the Prince edition of How to Destroy Surveillance Capitalism On January 28, 2021, at 2 p.m. pacific time, join EFF special advisor Cory Doctorow for the launch of the Prince edition of his short book about competition, disinformation, and monopoly, How to Destroy Surveillance Capitalism. Reimagining Public Safety Can Surveillance Be a Fair and Effective Tool? On January 28, 2021, from 7 p.m. to 8 30 p.m. pacific time, How to Surveillance Impact Racial Justice and Public Safety in Petamont and our broader community. Join PREC, PADC, Petamont League of Women Voters, and our panelists for a discussion on new surveillance technologies to monitor, track, and predict the actions of citizens. Anti-surveillance and the Duty to Encrypt, Practical Lessons for Non-Profit Organizations On January 29, 2021, at 12 30 p.m. pacific time, since the onset of COVID-19, many non-profit organizations have had to face the question of how to use technology to serve their communities remotely, bringing new risk to some already heavily surveilled communities. In this panel, Albert Kane from the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project, Nathan Nash Sheared from EFF, Matt Mitchell from the Ford Foundation, and Peter Misek from AccessNow will discuss the ethical implications of using technology and will help equip organizations with strategies to mitigate risk and reduce harm. EFF at Enigma 2021, Detecting 4G Base Stations in Real-Time On February 3, 2021, from 7.05 to 7.35 p.m. pacific time, 4G-based IMSI catchers such as the hail storm are becoming more popular with governments and law enforcement around the world as well as with spies and even criminals. Until now, IMSI catcher detection has been focused on 2G IMSI catchers such as the stingray that are quickly falling out of favor. In this talk, we will demonstrate a brand new software project to detect fake 4G base stations with open-source software and relatively cheap hardware. We will reveal what we have found so far using our methods and present a plan to dramatically limit the capabilities of IMSI catchers with the long-term goal of making them useless once for all. At home with EFF, online censorship beyond Trump and Parler. On February 3, 2021, from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. pacific time, join EFF and a host of platform and content moderation experts with experience at Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Pinterest for a provocative conversation about the free speech issues facing us today. From the takedown of Parler to the removal of Trump, getting inside look at how these decisions are made and the ways they can affect everyone on the internet. Corey Doctorow in conversation with Edward Snowden. On February 9, 2021, at 7 p.m. pacific time, join EFF special advisor Corey Doctorow in conversation with the whistleblower Edward Snowden for an online event to launch the young adult edition of Snowden's memoir, Permanent Record. Last up, we have some mini-links. Our first one is from Digital Trends. Robotic police officers are slowly being normalized, whether we like it or not. Police robots may seem fun, but their normalization may be an indicator for more surveillance, racial profiling, and a future full of hard choices. This one's from The New York Times. Tech company terms of service, what happens when you click agree. Quote, it's past time to begin to restore power to consumers by curbing tech companies every day over reach through lopsided consumer contracts. Our last mini-link is from The Guardian. 10 ideas to rebuild our broken internet by experts. Away from the vitriol, researchers are investigating concrete steps companies, officials, and the rest of us can take to tackle the crisis. And that's it. Thanks for listening. Remember that this newsletter is short summaries of full articles, so if you want to dive deeper, be sure to check out eff.org slash effector to read the full articles. Lastly, EFF is a member supported organization. We need your help to continue our work fighting for privacy, security, and free expression on the internet. You can donate to EFF today and even grab some gear by heading over to eff.org slash effect. That's EFF dot org slash EFF ECT. You can become a member for as little as $25 or even sign up as a monthly or annual donor. Thanks for your support and we'll keep you updated during the next issue of effector.