NEW: EPIC's latest report details how many major online platforms—from social media to data brokers to dating apps—use manipulative design patterns to make it more difficult for consumer to opt out of the collection, use, transfer, or sale of their personal data. 🧵

As part of last week's 16th annual @labor-research.bsky.social conference, EPIC Law Fellow @mayu-tm.bsky.social spoke on a panel about how AI is reshaping workplaces across sectors — and how workers are organizing to reclaim power. Thank you to Teamsters Local Union 728 in Atlanta for hosting!

EPIC Deputy Director @caitrionafitz.bsky.social spoke to @nytimes.com about how “no essay” college applications are essentially a raffle ticket that students pay for with their data. “It’s a really clear example of a power asymmetry between individuals and big data companies,” she said.

EPIC Counsel @suzannebernstein.bsky.social testified Thursday before a New Jersey Assembly committee in support of the state's Fair Price Protection Act, a bill that would protect NJ consumers from surveillance pricing.

Yesterday, EPIC, @nationalconsumers.bsky.social, and 5 other public interest groups submitted comments supporting the FTC's efforts to eliminate unfair/deceptive fees in online food delivery services and encouraging the agency to prohibit harmful surveillance pricing practices economy-wide.

This week, the CO Legislature passed a bill that repeals significant testing and safety requirements from the state’s AI Act, a landmark 2024 law that regulates the use of AI in making important decisions about Coloradans’ lives. The bill also once again delays the bill’s effective date to 2027.

For years, the surveillance state has been quietly expanding across the U.S. Systems built to target ads and fuel tech profits have become systems of government control, and they are threatening the foundations of our democracy. EPIC is fighting back, and we need your support. Learn more:

EPIC Counsel @tommcbrien.bsky.social spoke to NBC News NOW about the unfair, invasive, and increasingly widespread practice of surveillance pricing: “It’s not supply and demand," he said. "We’re getting outside of Econ 101 here. Instead, [prices are] set by an algorithm using our personal data.”

People and providers in the U.S. live in a constant state of uncertainty about what’s coming next regarding reproductive health privacy. 🧵

On Thursday, EPIC Law Fellow Mayu Tobin-Miyaji will speak on a panel about AI in the workplace as part of the Labor Research & Action Network’s 2026 Conference. Learn more:

Yesterday, EPIC submitted comments to CalPrivacy advising the agency on best practices for its data broker auditing process. Independent testing and inspection requirements, including additional audit requirements for those using AI systems, would ensure effective audits.

On Wednesday, EPIC and @cdt.org urged HUD to withdraw its proposal to collect new categories of personally identifiable information and introduce AI features to draft case summaries and email responses. Alarmingly, it seems the department has already begun collecting this data and using AI tools.

EPIC’s Kara Williams testified Monday in support of an Illinois bill that says chatbots are products and their providers can be held strictly liable for harms their chatbots cause. The bill’s liability framework is based on the liability section of EPIC’s People-First Chatbot Bill.

Everyone, including leaders in Congress, agrees that the U.S. needs a federal privacy law. But a bad privacy law would be worse than no law at all. Unfortunately, the GOP's recently released SECURE Data Act is worse than any privacy law we've evaluated.

Last week, EPIC urged the House Oversight Committee to table a suite of so-called fraud prevention bills that actually present grave and unwarranted threats to the privacy and liberty of every American.

State lawmakers want to protect kids online. But blocking kids’ access to social media and other apps isn’t the right solution. Tech companies’ harmful design practices are the problem. The solution is to regulate the way platforms are designed. 🧵

On Wednesday at 3:30 p.m., EPIC Senior Counsel @sarageoghegan.bsky.social will participate in a virtual panel about data ethics and misuse in senior marketing at the Network & Navigate Virtual Summit, which is being hosted by the Mark Maimon Team at Luminate Bank. Register to attend here:

On Tuesday, EPIC joined a group of more than 340 organizations led by the National Immigration Law Center to call on Congress to vote no on the upcoming budget resolution, which would authorize up to $140 billion in new mandatory funds for ICE and CBP.

📬 April's edition of The Alert is live! Our monthly newsletter is the best way to stay up to date on all things EPIC, from lawsuits to legislation. Didn't receive The Alert in your inbox this morning? Take a look at this month's issue here:

The surveillance state isn’t slowing down, but neither are we. EPIC is tracking government surveillance, advancing new legal challenges, and pushing for stronger federal protections every day. But to keep doing this critical work, we need your help. Will you join us?

This week, EPIC Deputy Director and Policy Director Caitriona Fitzgerald testified before Vermont lawmakers in support of a bill that would expand consumer data privacy in that state via strong data minimization provisions, heightened protections for minors, and a ban on the sale of sensitive data.

Last week, EPIC, @nclc4consumers.bsky.social, @weareunidosus.bsky.social, and a coalition of 42 other civil society organizations sent a letter to the House Financial Services Committee to oppose a draft bill that would amend the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act.

Last week, EPIC and a coalition of plaintiffs led by the League of Women Voters urged a federal court to enter summary judgement in their lawsuit challenging the Trump administration’s unlawful consolidation and misuse of citizenship data.

Last week, EPIC filed three amicus briefs urging the circuit courts to rebuff the Department of Justice’s unlawful demand for voter rolls in California, Michigan, and Oregon.

Today, SCOTUS heard oral argument in Chatrie v. United States, a case about the constitutionality of a controversial investigative technique called the geofence search. (1/4)

Last week, EPIC Counsel @suzannebernstein.bsky.social spoke on a panel at the Global Age Assurance Standards Summit in Manchester, UK, about the legal and policy landscape for age assurance in the US. Learn more about EPIC’s work on age assurance & platform accountability here: shorturl.at/JiCOu

Today, EPIC and a group of technical experts and legal scholars filed an amicus brief in the U.S. Supreme Court supporting the petitioner in Salazar v. Paramount Global.

On Wednesday, EPIC Counsel Kara Williams testified in support of a Delaware House bill that would extend important new privacy protections to consumers. We commend Delaware’s lawmakers for drafting these important amendments and encourage them to further strengthen the bill in a few key ways:

EPIC filed submitted comments this week urging HUD to abandon a proposed rule that would require all applicants for agency assistance to verify U.S. citizenship or eligible immigration status. The rule isn’t just “cartoonishly evil,” as our comments noted; it also violates federal privacy law.

EPIC Counsel @tommcbrien.bsky.social testified Tuesday before the Colorado Senate Business, Labor & Technology Committee in support of a bill that would protect Coloradans from surveillance pricing and surveillance wage-setting practices.

Last week, EPIC joined 15 other civil society organizations in a comment supporting the FTC’s efforts to better regulate negative option marketing via a click-to-cancel rule and urging the Commission to move swiftly to crack down on harmful subscription practices.

On Wednesday, the updated Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) Rule went into effect. The much-needed modernization of the COPPA Rule improves the Commission’s ability to protect kids online. Read EPIC’s comments in the COPPA rulemaking process here: epic.org/documents/co...

The SECURE Data Act is not a serious effort at tackling the urgent privacy crisis facing this country. It is weaker than many existing state laws (the very state laws that it would wipe off the books with its broad preemption provision). Some examples:

Today, House Republicans unveiled two so-called "privacy" bills that play directly into the hands of Big Tech and outright fail to protect Americans’ personal data. Read EPIC’s statement on the SECURE Data Act and the GUARD Financial Data Act: epic.org/epics-statem...

Today, EPIC, ACLU of Alaska, and ACLU Voting Rights Project filed a lawsuit challenging the Alaska Division of Elections for unconstitutionally sharing Alaska’s unredacted Voter Registration List with the DOJ in December 2025. epic.org/press-releas...

NEW: Privacy and voting rights case filed against state officials by the LWV of Alaska and Alaska Black Caucus. @epic.org joins ACLU of Alaska and @aclu.org as counsel. We're honored to help Alaskans fight for accountability and defend against unlawful abuse of voter data. epic.org/press-releas...

On Monday, EPIC filed an amicus brief arguing that the Virginia city of Norfolk’s use of Flock’s Automated License Plate Reader system creates a warrantless mass surveillance program and constitutes an unreasonable search in violation of the Fourth Amendment.

The FTC’s Strategic Plan should serve as an instrument for accountability, transparency, and ambition in advancing the Commission’s mission of protecting the American people from corporate misconduct. The agency’s latest plan falls far short of that goal.

Yesterday, EPIC Law Fellow Mayu Tobin-Miyaji spoke at the Puget Sound Symposium on AI & Privacy on a panel about the challenges that arise when AI can interpret, infer, or predict information from our bodies, brains, and digital archives. Learn more about AI's privacy challenges: epic.org/issues/ai/

On Wednesday, EPIC Counsel Tom McBrien spoke at the National Association of Attorneys General’s Annual Conference on a panel about the data-driven pricing ecosystem. Learn more about EPIC’s efforts to combat surveillance pricing here: epic.org/issues/consu...

This week, EPIC submitted testimony in support of two South Carolina bills that would place commonsense guardrails on chatbots: one based on our People-First Chatbot Bill and one that would regulate the manipulative design features and practices used by chatbot companies.

On Monday, EPIC filed an amicus brief defending South Carolina’s Age-Appropriate Design Code against Big Tech's latest attempt to strike down laws designed to keep kids safe online. Our brief points out that NetChoice is again trying to contort 1A protections beyond recognition. Here's how:

On Tuesday, Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger signed into law a landmark privacy bill that prohibits the sale of Virginians’ precise geolocation data. We hope to see other states join the ranks of Virgina, Maryland, and Oregon, all of which have now banned this harmful business practice outright.

The government is buying data to avoid constitutional or statutory protections using what’s known as the data broker loophole, and that data is now being fed to opaque and unaccountable AI systems. The implications of this cannot be understated.

On Wednesday at 5 p.m., EPIC Deputy Director and Director of Enforcement John Davisson will speak on a panel about building accountability into data systems at Georgetown University’s McCourt School of Public Policy. Register to attend here:

EPIC is proud to join 70+ organizations in calling on Meta to halt and publicly disavow its plans to add facial recognition to its Ray-Ban smart glasses. We don't consent to this profound invasion of privacy, and you shouldn't either.

Be sure to check out the latest episode of Left to Their Own Devices to hear social psychologist Jonathan Haidt and GenZ host Ava Smithing reach across the generational and ideological divide to discuss one of the most fraught tech issues of our time: what to do about kids and the internet.

In an opinion published today in Massachusetts v. Meta, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled against Meta’s overbroad Section 230 arguments, allowing the Commonwealth’s claim—that Meta designed its platform to be addictive and then publicly denied doing so—to proceed.

Major ruling from the en banc Fourth Circuit in AFSCME v. SSA, which validates the core basis for Article III standing in the many Privacy Act cases against DOGE & other agency database incursions. "DOGE is the nosy janitor." storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

On Wednesday, April 15, EPIC Counsel Tom McBrien will speak at the National Association of Attorneys General’s Annual Conference on a panel about the data-driven pricing ecosystem. Learn more, or register to attend the conference: