Privacy & Technology

The ACLU works to expand the right to privacy, increase the control individuals have over their personal information, and ensure civil liberties are enhanced rather than compromised by technological innovation.

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What you need to know

1986
The federal law protecting your electronic information was passed in 1986, making it older than the World Wide Web.
Fourth Amendment
The government argues that the Fourth Amendment protects information that you keep in your desk, but not information that you keep online, like old emails or pictures.
National Security Agency
In order to carry out mass surveillance, the NSA has weakened the security of the communications systems that we all rely on.

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What's at Stake

“The fact that technology now allows an individual to carry such information in his hand does not make the information any less worthy of the protection for which the Founders fought.”

—U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts in Riley v. California (2014)

Technological innovation has outpaced our privacy protections. As a result, our digital footprint can be tracked by the government and corporations in ways that were once unthinkable.

This digital footprint is constantly growing, containing more and more data about the most intimate aspects of our lives. This includes our communications, whereabouts, online searches, purchases, and even our bodies. When the government has easy access to this information, we lose more than just privacy and control over our information. Free speech, security, and equality suffer as well.

The ACLU Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project fights in the courts, lobbies on Capitol Hill, and works with technology companies to ensure that civil liberties are protected as technology advances. We are working to secure a warrant requirement for law enforcement access to electronic information, to chip away at the government’s excessive secrecy surrounding its surveillance practices, to promote the proliferation of privacy-protective technologies, and more.

Americans should not have to choose between using new technologies and protecting their civil liberties. We work to ensure a future in which the Fourth Amendment ban on unreasonable searches extends to digital property and your data is your own.

“The fact that technology now allows an individual to carry such information in his hand does not make the information any less worthy of the protection for which the Founders fought.”

—U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts in Riley v. California (2014)

Technological innovation has outpaced our privacy protections. As a result, our digital footprint can be tracked by the government and corporations in ways that were once unthinkable.

This digital footprint is constantly growing, containing more and more data about the most intimate aspects of our lives. This includes our communications, whereabouts, online searches, purchases, and even our bodies. When the government has easy access to this information, we lose more than just privacy and control over our information. Free speech, security, and equality suffer as well.

The ACLU Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project fights in the courts, lobbies on Capitol Hill, and works with technology companies to ensure that civil liberties are protected as technology advances. We are working to secure a warrant requirement for law enforcement access to electronic information, to chip away at the government’s excessive secrecy surrounding its surveillance practices, to promote the proliferation of privacy-protective technologies, and more.

Americans should not have to choose between using new technologies and protecting their civil liberties. We work to ensure a future in which the Fourth Amendment ban on unreasonable searches extends to digital property and your data is your own.
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