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経済産業省は、工場を建設する目的で平成27年（1月～12月期）に1,000平方メートル以上の用地を取得した製造業、ガス業、熱供給業、電気業の事業者を対象に「工場立地動向調査」を実施し、結果を取りまとめました。

4月5日から9日まで、韓国のソウルにおいて、日中韓自由貿易協定(FTA)交渉の第10回交渉会合(局長/局次長会合)が開催されます。

経済産業省は、昨年10月に「活力あふれる『ビンテージ・ソサエティ』の実現に向けた取組に係る研究会」を立ち上げ、検討を重ね、今般報告書をとりまとめました。

交通事故の削減や渋滞緩和、環境負荷低減等の課題解決が期待される協調ITS（※）の実現普及に必要とされる地図データベースの整備や維持・更新のコスト削減に役立つ日本発の国際規格が制定されました。

平成28年3月4日に、東京電力からありました改正電気事業法に基づく会社分割に係る申請について、このたび申請のとおり認可しました。

You ever hear the saying, "it takes a village"? I never really understood the saying until I started going to conferences, attending protests, and working on EFF's membership team. 

You see, EFF's mission thrives because we are powered by people like you. Just as we fight for your privacy and free expression through grassroots advocacy, we rely on grassroots support to make all of our work possible. Will you join our movement with a small monthly donation today?

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　総選挙後の臨時国会が11月28日に召集され翌29日、石破茂首相が所信表明演説を行った。その内容について30日の朝刊社説は、例外なく「演説の評価」を取り上げた。　「問われる『熟議』の実行」（朝日）、「熟議で開く未来が見えぬ」（毎日）、「目指す国家像が判然としない」（読売）、「国民に見える法案審議に」（西日本）、「対中認識が甘すぎないか」（産経）の見出しで、少数与党の政権に対して審議方法への注文に重点を置きながら内容を吟味した。産経のように「対中国問題」を中心に書いた内容もあっ..

This year, we celebrated the 15th anniversary of our Surveillance-Self Defense (SSD) guide. How’d we celebrate? We kept at it—continuing to work on, refine, and update one of the longest running security and privacy guides on the internet.

Technology changes quickly enough as it is, but so does the language we use to describe that technology. In order for SSD to thrive, it needs careful attention throughout the year. So, we like to think of SSD as a garden, always in need of a little watering, maybe some trimming, and the occasional mowing down of dead technologies. 

Brushing Up on the Basics

A large chunk of SSD exists to explain concepts around digital security in the hopes that you can take that knowledge to make your own decisions about your specific needs. As we often say, security is a mindset, not a purchase. But in order to foster that mindset, you need some basic knowledge. This year, we set out to refine some of this guidance in the hopes of making it easier to read and useful for a variety of skill levels. The guides we updated included:

• Choosing Your Tools
• Communicating with Others
• Keeping Your Data Safe
• Seven Steps to Digital Security
• Why Metadata Matters
• What Is Fingerprinting?
• How do I Protect Myself Against Malware?

Big Guides, Big (and Small) Changes

If you’re looking for something a bit longer, then some of our more complicated guides are practically novels. This year, we updated a few of these.

We went through our Privacy Breakdown of Mobile Phones and updated it with more recent examples when applicable, and included additional tips at the end of some sections for actionable steps you can take. Phones continue to be one of the most privacy-invasive devices we own, and getting a handle on what they’re capable of is the first step to figuring out what risks you may face.

Our Attending a Protest guide is something we revisit every year (sometimes a couple times a year) to ensure it’s as accurate as possible. This year was no different, and while there were no sweeping changes, we did update the included PDF guide and added screenshots where applicable.

We also reworked our How to: Understand and Circumvent Network Censorship slightly to frame it more as instructional guidance, and included new features and tools to get around censorship, like utilizing a proxy in messaging tools.

New Guides

We saw two additions to the SSD this year. First up was How to: Detect Bluetooth Trackers, our guide to locating unwanted Bluetooth trackers—like Apple AirTags or Tile—that someone may use to track your location. Both Android and iOS have made changes to detecting these sorts of trackers, but the wide array of different products on the market means it doesn’t always work as expected.

We also put together a guide for the iPhone’s Lockdown Mode. While not a feature that everyone needs to consider, it has proven helpful in some cases, and knowing what those circumstances are is an important step in deciding if it’s a feature you need to enable.  

But How do I?

As the name suggests, our Tool Guides are all about learning how to best protect what you do on your devices. This might be setting up two-factor authentication, turning on encryption on your laptop, or setting up something like Apple’s Advanced Data Protection. These guides tend to need a yearly look to ensure they’re up-to-date. For example, Signal saw the launch of usernames, so we went in and made sure that was added to the guide. Here’s what we updated this year:

• How to: Avoid Phishing Attacks
• How to: Enable Two-factor Authentication
• How to: Encrypt Your Computer
• How to: Encrypt Your iPhone
• How to: Use Signal

And Then There Were Blogs

Surveillance Self-Defense isn’t just a website, it’s also a general approach to privacy and security. To that end, we often use our blog to tackle more specific questions or respond to news.

This year, we talked about the risks you might face using your state’s digital driver’s license, and whether or not the promise of future convenience is worth the risks of today.

We dove into an attack method in VPNs called TunnelVision, which showed how it was possible for someone on a local network to intercept some VPN traffic. We’ve reiterated our advice here that VPNs—at least from providers who've worked to mitigate TunnelVision—remain useful for routing your network connection through a different network, but they should not be treated as a security multi-tool.

Location data privacy is still a major issue this year, with potential and horrific abuses of this data popping up in the news constantly. We showed how and why you should disable location sharing in apps that don’t need access to function.

As mentioned above, our SSD on protesting is a perennial always in need of pruning, but sometimes you need to plant a whole new flower, as was the case when we decided to write up tips for protesters on campuses around the United States.

Every year, we fight for more privacy and security, but until we get that, stronger controls of our data and a better understanding of how technology works is our best defense.

This article is part of our Year in Review series. Read other articles about the fight for digital rights in 2024.

For a decade, the EU has served as the regulatory frontrunner for online services and new technology. Over the past two EU mandates (terms), the EU Commission brought down many regulations covering all sectors, but Big Tech has been the center of their focus. As the EU seeks to regulate the world’s largest tech companies, the world is taking notice, and debates about the landmark Digital Markets Act (DMA) and Digital Services Act (DSA) have spread far beyond Europe. 

The DSA’s focus is the governance of online content. It requires increased transparency in content moderation while holding platforms accountable for their role in disseminating illegal content. 

For “very large online platforms” (VLOPs), the DSA imposes a complex challenge: addressing “systemic risks” – those arising from their platforms’ underlying design and rules - as well as from how these services are used by the public. Measures to address these risks often pull in opposite directions. VLOPs must tackle illegal content and address public security concerns; while simultaneously upholding fundamental rights, such as freedom of expression; while also considering impacts on electoral processes and more nebulous issues like “civic discourse.” Striking this balance is no mean feat, and the role of regulators and civil society in guiding and monitoring this process remains unclear.  

As you can see, the DSA is trying to walk a fine line: addressing safety concerns and the priorities of the market. The DSA imposes uniform rules on platforms that are meant to ensure fairness for individual users, but without so proscribing the platforms’ operations that they can’t innovate and thrive.  

The DMA, on the other hand, concerns itself entirely with the macro level – not on the rights of users, but on the obligations of, and restrictions on, the largest, most dominant platforms.  

The DMA concerns itself with a group of “gatekeeper” platforms that control other businesses’ access to digital markets. For these gatekeepers, the DMA imposes a set of rules that are supposed to ensure “contestability” (that is, making sure that upstarts can contest gatekeepers’ control and maybe overthrow their power) and “fairness” for digital businesses.  

Together, the DSA and DMA promise a safer, fairer, and more open digital ecosystem. 

As 2024 comes to a close, important questions remain: How effectively have these laws been enforced? Have they delivered actual benefits to users?

Fairness Regulation: Ambition and High-Stakes Clashes 

There’s a lot to like in the DMA’s rules on fairness, privacy and choice...if you’re a technology user. If you’re a tech monopolist, those rules are a nightmare come true. 

Predictably, the DMA was inaugurated with a no-holds-barred dirty fight between the biggest US tech giants and European enforcers.  

Take commercial surveillance giant Meta: the company’s mission is to relentlessly gather, analyze and abuse your personal information, without your consent or even your knowledge. In 2016, the EU passed its landmark privacy law, called the General Data Protection Regulation. The GDPR was clearly intended to halt Facebook’s romp through the most sensitive personal information of every European. 

In response, Facebook simply pretended the GDPR didn’t say what it clearly said, and went on merrily collecting Europeans’ information without their consent. Facebook’s defense for this is that they were contractually obliged to collect this information, because their terms and conditions represented a promise to users to show them surveillance ads, and if they didn’t gather all that information, they’d be breaking that promise. 

The DMA strengthens the GDPR by clarifying the blindingly obvious point that a privacy law exists to protect your privacy. That means that Meta’s services – Facebook, Instagram, Threads, and its “metaverse” (snicker) - are no longer allowed to plunder your private information. They must get your consent. 

In response, Meta announced that it would create a new paid tier for people who don’t want to be spied on, and thus anyone who continues to use the service without paying for it is “consenting” to be spied on. The DMA explicitly bans these “Pay or OK” arrangements, but then, the GDPR banned Meta’s spying, too. Zuckerberg and his executives are clearly expecting that they can run the same playbook again. 

Apple, too, is daring the EU to make good on its threats. Ordered to open up its iOS devices (iPhones, iPads and other mobile devices) to third-party app stores, the company cooked up a Kafkaesque maze of junk fees, punitive contractual clauses, and unworkable conditions and declared itself to be in compliance with the DMA.  

For all its intransigence, Apple is getting off extremely light. In an absurd turn of events, Apple’s iMessage system was exempted from the DMA’s interoperability requirements (which would have forced Apple to allow other messaging systems to connect to iMessage and vice-versa). The EU Commission decided that Apple’s iMessage – a dominant platform that the company CEO openly boasts about as a source of lock-in – was not a “gatekeeper platform.”

Platform regulation: A delicate balance 

For regulators and the public the growing power of online platforms has sparked concerns: how can we address harmful content, while also protecting platforms from being pushed to over-censor, so that freedom of expression isn’t on the firing line?  

EFF has advocated for fundamental principles like “transparency,” “openness,” and “technological self-determination.” In our European work, we always emphasize that new legislation should preserve, not undermine, the protections that have served the internet well. Keep what works, fix what is broken.  

In the DSA, the EU got it right, with a focus on platforms’ processes rather than on speech control. The DSA has rules for reporting problematic content, structuring terms of use, and responding to erroneous content removals. That’s the right way to do platform governance! 

But that doesn’t mean we’re not worried about the DSA’s new obligations for tackling illegal content and systemic risks, broad goals that could easily lead to enforcement overreach and censorship. 

In 2024, our fears were realized, when the DSA’s ambiguity as to how systemic risks should be mitigated created a new, politicized enforcement problem. Then-Commissioner Theirry Breton sent a letter to Twitter, saying that under the DSA, the platform had an obligation to remove content related to far-right xenophobic riots in the UK, and about an upcoming meeting between Donald Trump and Elon Musk. This letter sparked widespread concern that the DSA was a tool to allow bureaucrats to decide which political speech could and could not take place online. Breton’s letter sidestepped key safeguards in the DSA: the Commissioner ignored the question of “systemic risks” and instead focused on individual pieces of content, and then blurred the DSA’s critical line between "illegal” and “harmful”; Breton’s letter also ignored the territorial limits of the DSA, demanding content takedowns that reached outside the EU. 

Make no mistake: online election disinformation and misinformation can have serious real-world consequences, both in the U.S. and globally. This is why EFF supported the EU Commission’s initiative to gather input on measures platforms should take to mitigate risks linked to disinformation and electoral processes. Together with ARTICLE 19, we submitted comments to the EU Commission on future guidelines for platforms. In our response, we recommend that the guidelines prioritize best practices, instead of policing speech. Additionally, we recommended that DSA risk assessment and mitigation compliance evaluations prioritize ensuring respect for fundamental rights.  

The typical way many platforms address organized or harmful disinformation is by removing content that violates community guidelines, a measure trusted by millions of EU users. But contrary to concerns raised by EFF and other civil society groups, a new law in the EU, the EU Media Freedom Act, enforces a 24-hour content moderation exemption for media, effectively making platforms host content by force. While EFF successfully pushed for crucial changes and stronger protections, we remain concerned about the real-world challenges of enforcement.  

This article is part of our Year in Review series. Read other articles about the fight for digital rights in 2024.

“EFF's mission is to ensure that technology supports freedom, justice, and innovation for all people of the world.” It can be a tough job. A lot of our time is spent fighting bad things that are happening in the world or fixing things that have been broken for a long time.

But this work is important, and we've accomplished great things this year! Thanks to your help, we pushed the USPTO to withdraw harmful patent review proposals, fought for the public's right to access police drone footage, and continue to see more and more of the web encrypted thanks to Certbot and Let’s Encrypt.

Of course, the biggest reason EFF is able to fight for privacy and free expression online is support from EFF members. Public support is not only the reason we can operate but is also a great motivator to wake up and advocate for what’s right—especially when we get to hang out with some really cool folks! And with that, I’d like to reminisce.

EFF's Bay Area Festivities

Early in the year we held our annual Spring Members’ Speakeasy. We invited supporters in the Bay Area to join us at Babylon Burning, where all of EFF’s t-shirts, hoodies, and much of our swag are made. There, folks got a fun opportunity to hand print their own tote bag! It was a fun opportunity to see t-shirts that even I had never seen before. Side note, EFF has a lot of mechas on members’ t-shirts.

Vintage EFF t-shirts hung across the walls at Babylon Burning.

The EFF team had a great time with EFF supporters at events throughout the year. Of course, my mind was blown seeing the questions EFF gamemasters (including the Cybertiger) came up with for both Tech Trivia and Cyberlaw Trivia. What was even more impressive was seeing how many answers teams got right at both events. During Cyberlaw Trivia, one team was able to recite 22 digits of pi, winning the tiebreaker question and the coveted first place prize!

Beating the Heat in Las Vegas

EFF staff with the Uber Contributor Award.

Next, one of my favorite summer pastimes beating the heat in Las Vegas, where we get to see thousands of EFF supporters for the summer security conferences—BSidesLV, Black Hat, and DEF CON. This year over one thousand people signed up to support the digital freedom movement in just that one week. The support EFF receives during the summer security conferences always amazes me, and it’s a joy to say hi to everyone that stops by to see us. We received an award from DEF CON and even speed ran a legal case, ensuring a security researchers' ability to give their talk at the conference.

While the lawyers were handling the legal case at DEF CON, a subgroup of us had a blast participating in the EFF Benefit Poker Tournament. Fourty-six supporters and friends played for money, glory, and the future of the web—all while using these new EFF playing cards! In the end, only one winner could beat the celebrity guests, including Cory Doctorow and Deviant (even winning the literal shirt off of Deviant's back).

EFFecting Change

This year we also launched a new livestream series: EFFecting Change. With our initial three events, we covered recent Supreme Court cases and how they affect the internet, keeping yourself safe when seeking reproductive care, and how to protest with privacy in mind. We’ve seen a lot of support for these events and are excited to continue them next year. Oh, and no worries if you missed one—they’re all recorded here!

Congrats to Our 2024 EFF Award Winners

We wanted to end the year in style, of course, with our annual EFF Awards. This year we gave awards to 404 Media, Carolina Botero, and Connecting Humanity—and you can watch the keynote if you missed it. We’re grateful to honor and lift up the important work of these award winners.

EFF staff and EFF Award Winners holding their trophies.

And It's All Thanks to You

There was so much more to this year too. We shared campfire tales from digital freedom legends, the Encryptids; poked fun at bogus copyright law with our latest membership t-shirt; and hosted even more events throughout the country.

As 2025 approaches, it’s important to reflect on all the good work that we’ve done together in the past year. Yes, there’s a lot going on in the world, and times may be challenging, but with support from people like you, EFF is ready to keep up the fight—no matter what.

Many thanks to all of the EFF members who joined forces with us this year! If you’ve been meaning to join, but haven’t yet, year-end is a great time to do so.

This article is part of our Year in Review series. Read other articles about the fight for digital rights in 2024.

　11月17日午後８時、投票締切と同時に在阪の各民放局が「当確」を打った。神戸市の元町商店街にある選挙事務所前は大歓声。「サイトー」「サイトー」の渦となる。事務所は「ＮＨＫの当確を待つ」としていたが待ち切れず、前知事の齋 […]

　女性に対するあらゆる差別を禁じた女性差別撤廃条約の進捗状況を検討する女性差別撤廃委員会（ＣＥＤＡＷ）は10月29日、日本政府に対する勧告を含む「最終見解」を公表した。同17日、２０１６年以来８年ぶりにスイスの国連欧州本 […]

　私はこの原稿を、カマラ・ハリスの大統領選敗北の落胆の中で書いている。やっぱり女は負けるのか、とつい思ってしまう。しかし違う。勝ってほしくない女性もいる。男女関係なく、人間としてのありようの問題なのだ。カマラ・ハリスは応 […]

　さまざまな刑事事件の弁護人を務めた大谷恭子弁護士が、10月11日に亡くなった。74歳だった。 　１９５０年、東京・十条で米店を営む両親の下に生まれた。早稲田大学法学部に入学したのは学生運動が激しく展開されていた真っただ […]

　原発事故により関東から大阪市に避難し、その最中に末期がん患者かつ重度障害者となった新鍋さゆりさん（仮名・50代）は、公営住宅無償提供の打ち切り（２０１７年３月末）に際して入居していた市営住宅の退去を求められ、生活保護の […]

　旧優生保護法で障害者に強制した不妊手術は憲法違反と断じ、国に損害賠償を命じた７月３日の最高裁判決から４カ月、被害からの回復に道を開いた勝訴をどう生かし、差別根絶につなげるかを考える集会が11月５日、東京・永田町の参議院 […]

　与党を過半数割れに追い込んだ総選挙が終わってから１週間後の11月３日、日本国憲法公布から78年のこの日、東京・永田町の国会議事堂前では「憲法変えさせない！戦争反対！今こそ平和と人権11・３国会大行動」が開催された。共催 […]

　来年の１月、私は50歳の誕生日を迎える。そして２０２５年は私のデビュー25周年にあたる。 　２０００年に25歳で自伝『生き地獄天国』を出してから早や25年。まさか自分がこんなにも長く文筆業を続けるなど思ってもいなかった […]

　２０１５年７月、旧動力炉・核燃料開発事業団（以下「動燃」）で、現在の国立研究開発法人日本原子力研究開発機構（以下「機構」）の元職員４人（17年３月に２人追加）が、思想や信条に着目した不当かつ差別的人事処遇や、同期・同学 […]

　 　10月22日午前６時。東京都町田市小野路町に住むＭさん（男性）は、自宅の庭に水が湧き、ブクブクと気泡が噴出するのを見て驚いた。85年間も同じ場所で生きてきて初めてのできごとだ。 　Ｍさんは水道管の破損を疑い、市水道 […]