EFFector

The effort to age gate the internet is back in Washington—and now it has a new name. Recently passed by the House of Representatives, the KIDS Act is a sprawling package of proposals to control what we can see and say online.

Supporters claim the KIDS Act is needed to protect minors online. But if lawmakers really want to make the internet safer, why are they encouraging surveillance instead of protecting our privacy?

EFFector is a podcast by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the leading nonprofit defending online civil liberties. Support our work today at https://eff.org/podfan.

0:00 Intro

5:42 Understanding the KIDS Act w/ Joe Mullin

22:49 KIDS Act Quiz

29:26 EFF Events and Opportunities

The Fourth Amendment is supposed to protect Americans from unreasonable searches by their government. But in some cases, there has been a glaring loophole if the FBI wants to read your emails. Sold to the public as a foreign surveillance tool, Section 702 is a law that has let intelligence agencies spy on millions of Americans’ private conversations without a warrant.

Despite years of revelations about this law's misuse, Congress has repeatedly reauthorized Section 702 without meaningful reform. Until this month, that is, when Section 702 finally lapsed in a major victory for privacy. But why did it happen, and what happens next?

EFFector is a podcast by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the leading nonprofit defending online civil liberties. Become an EFF member today at https://eff.org/podfan.

0:00 Intro

3:19 Interview with Matthew Guariglia

24:51 Threat Modeling Exercise 

33:16 EFF Events and Opportunities 

Across the country, surveillance companies have spun a vast web of tens of thousands of license plate cameras. Known as ALPR networks, these are mass surveillance systems that allow police to track your car's every move. The people selling this tech want you to believe that it's for your safety, but how are authorities really using license plate readers?

Over the past year, we've learned that license plate readers have been used to surveil protestors and immigrants and even investigate abortion. New information, however, shows that police are using this powerful surveillance machine for just about anything they please. And their next search could be to check if you live in the right school district or to track your noisy car.

EFFector is a podcast by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the leading nonprofit defending online civil liberties. Become an EFF member today at https://eff.org/podfan.

00:00 Intro
04:47 Interview with Rindala Alajaji
22:17 Surveillance Cinema Quiz
28:20 EFF Events and Opportunities

When it comes to keeping our texts, chats, and other digital messages safe from prying eyes, we have a powerful tool: end-to-end encryption. Used correctly, end-to-end encryption turns our conversations online into secret messages that can only be decoded by their intended recipients. For years, we've been urging tech companies to bring this privacy-protecting tool to more of the apps and platforms we use every day. This month marks an important step forward for encrypted messaging—as well as a notable disappointment.

This week, Apple released iOS 26.5, an update that supports end-to-end encryption for Rich Communication Services (RCS), meaning conversations between Android and iPhone will soon be encrypted in the default chat apps.

Unfortunately, Instagram ended its opt-in, and therefore rarely used, end-to-end encryption feature. Years after publicly promising to provide the privacy protections of end-to-end encryption across its platforms by default, it instead gave up on that technical challenge. Now, we've all lost an option for safer conversations on one of the biggest social media platforms in the world.

EFFector is a podcast by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the leading nonprofit defending online civil liberties. Become an EFF member today at https://eff.org/podfan.

00:00 Intro
03:15 Interview with Thorin Klosowski
18:25 Post-Interview Discussion
21:32 Encryption Quiz
26:33 EFF Events and Opportunities

We'd all like the internet to be a better place—for kids and adults alike. But in the name of online safety, governments around the world are racing to impose a dangerous new system of control.

Following Australia's lead, California is now looking to ban anyone under 16 from accessing social media. That means putting much of the internet behind an age gate—a checkpoint that forces every user, regardless of age, to hand over even more sensitive information to tech companies.

Are age gates the silver bullet to the internet's problems they're being promoted as? Or are we being sold a bill of goods? Read more here: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/04/act-now-stop-californias-paternalistic-and-privacy-destroying-social-media-ban

EFFector is a podcast by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the leading nonprofit defending online civil liberties. Become an EFF member today at https://eff.org/podfan

When we use the internet, we're entrusting tech companies with some of our most private information. These companies have promised they'll keep our data safe. But what happens when the government comes knocking at their doors?

In April 2025, ICE sent Google an administrative subpoena requesting the data of Amandla Thomas-Johnson, a Ph.D. candidate studying in the U.S. on a student visa. The next month, Google gave Thomas-Johnson's information to ICE without giving him the chance to challenge the invalid subpoena, breaking a nearly decade-long promise to notify users before handing their data to law enforcement. Read Thomas-Johnson's account of his ordeal: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/04/google-broke-its-promise-me-now-ice-has-my-data.

EFFector is a podcast by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the leading nonprofit defending online civil liberties. Become an EFF member today at https://eff.org/podfan.

00:00 Intro
04:11 Interview with F. Mario Trujillo
18:09 Discussion
21:43 Digital Rights Quiz
33:38 EFF Events and Opportunities

All across the country, police have convinced communities to pay for mass surveillance systems like license plate readers, claiming they will help stop the most serious crimes. But once these ever-watchful electronic eyes are installed in your city, it's not just violent criminals they're recording—it's everyone.

Time and time again, we've seen police surveillance suffer from "mission creep." Technology that was sold as a way to catch killers ends up being used to enforce traffic violations, track protesters, and more. In this episode, we explain what mission creep is—and how it explains the disturbing normalization of mass surveillance technology.

EFFector is a podcast by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the leading nonprofit defending online civil liberties. Become an EFF member today at https://eff.org/podfan.

00:00 Intro
03:17 Interview with Adam Schwartz
26:57 Discussion
33:07 News Quiz
37:20 EFF Events and Opportunities

Thanks to smartphones, almost everybody these days is carrying a little video camera around in their pocket, all the time. But the next time a stranger films you in public, you might not be able to tell they're recording at all. In fact, their camera might look just like an ordinary pair of glasses.

After years of tech industry experiments, smartglasses with embedded cameras and microphones have finally gone mainstream. And, disturbingly, sometimes it's not just their owners who are watching what these devices record. This week, we'll be taking a closer look at the privacy implications of Meta Ray-Bans, the smartglasses from the makers of Facebook designed to be worn everywhere, all the time.

EFFector is a podcast by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the leading nonprofit defending online civil liberties. Become an EFF member today at https://eff.org/podfan.

00:00 Intro
03:47 Interview with Thorin Klosowski
14:58 Discussion
21:40 Smartglasses Quiz
26:28 News Quiz
35:07 EFF Events and Opportunities

We've all had the unsettling experience of seeing an ad online that reveals just how much advertisers know about our lives. You're right to be disturbed. Those very same online ad systems have been used by the government to warrantlessly track peoples' locations, new reporting has confirmed.

This week, we're talking about how advertising surveillance enables government surveillance. We're also discussing a victory for protesters seeking to hold police accountable and a troubling conflict over the Department of Defense's use of AI.

EFFector is a podcast by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the leading nonprofit defending online civil liberties. Become an EFF member today at https://eff.org/podfan.

The digital world isn't just a place you visit on your phone. It's the battleground where tomorrow's civil liberties will be won—or lost. Each episode of the EFFector podcast will fill you in on the most important news in digital rights, highlighting key developments in the fight for a world where technology supports freedom, not tyranny.

For 35 years, the Electronic Frontier Foundation has been the leading nonprofit defending civil liberties in the digital world. In that time, we've fought and won countless battles to protect privacy, security, and free expression—and we have no plans to stop. Sign up to get the EFFector newsletter delivered to your inbox: https://www.eff.org/effector/