What an astounding year 2018 was for advancing the privacy rights of all. Few would have imagined that both the U.S. House and Senate would turn their attention to comprehensive federal privacy legislation. But as news broke of Cambridge Analytica’s targeting of voters, the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation rattled global businesses, and California passed a sweeping privacy law, the privacy landscape saw dramatic changes.
Even before any of these developments took place, the team at CDT rolled up our sleeves and started the hard work of crafting a privacy law that would put the rights of individuals first. We convened diverse stakeholders to craft our model bill, facilitating difficult conversations across sectors, party lines, and ideologies. Most importantly, we prioritized the voices of organizations and individuals working every day to address the real impact data can have on people and the harm it can do, especially to those who have been historically marginalized.
Our bill represents a fresh, aspirational approach to privacy, where some uses of data are always off-limits. We turned the old model of “notice and choice” on its head, recognizing that there are simply some rights we shouldn’t be able to sign away.
Of course, privacy legislation is just one part of our portfolio. Every day, the talented team at CDT works tirelessly to advocate for the digital rights of all, enabling new voices to be heard online, securing our election systems so people are confident their vote counts, and pushing back against government efforts to deploy invasive technologies that monitor citizens and visitors.
We take our advocacy to the halls of the European Parliament, the U.S. Capitol, statehouses, and the courts. We also go directly to companies, large and small, to influence how they develop and deploy technology that services democracy worldwide. We’re building bold new partnerships and striving for policy solutions.
Looking ahead, it’s clear that we must rethink the old paradigms governing our data-driven world and return power to the individual. The Center for Democracy & Technology is leading the way forward. We’re grateful to all of our partners and supporters who inspire us each day and make our work possible.
Nuala O’Connor
In attempting to address the serious issue of sex trafficking, 
Suing the FCC for Repealing Net Neutrality Protections
Mobile technology is putting health data directly in the hands of individuals, allowing them to gain new insight into their bodies and minds. These tools have the potential to improve personal health, yet many mHealth apps also carry risks of producing interventions based on biased data. In our paper, 
Applying a Human Rights Framework to Cross Border Data Demands
Winning at the Supreme Court on Cell Location Information
Translating GDPR for Policymakers and Consumers
When U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announced that it was looking for machine-learning tools to continuously monitor U.S. visitors’ and immigrants’ social media posts to predict who should be allowed into the country and who should be deported, 
Improving Trust in VPNs
Major tech companies make countless decisions each day about what user- generated content to remove or promote. To enhance the free expression rights of internet users, 
Exploring the Limits of Automated Content Moderation
The U.S. State Department proposed collecting social media identifiers used in the last five years from 14.7 million immigrant and nonimmigrant visa applicants. 
Dockless mobility services, such as scooters, generate a tremendous amount of data and are certain to serve as a template for cities racing to create new standards to collect and analyze mobility data. 
Challenging the EU’s Approach to Online Terrorist Content
After the news that data from Facebook was shared with Cambridge Analytica and used for political profiling during the 2016 U.S. presidential election, Congress held hearings to uncover what happened and begin the process of addressing such data misuses. CDT was front and center during these hearings, 
Protecting Security Researchers
In the wake of tragedy, Florida passed the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety Act. Aimed at improving school safety, it will lead to the collection and integration of large amounts of data without first proving this effective, establishing boundaries on its use, or articulating clear data protocols. 
Supporting Strong Encryption in Australia
As part of its Digital Single Market Strategy, the European Parliament advanced a troubling copyright directive that would greatly impact the free speech rights of internet users. The proposed directive would mandate the use of content identification technology by intermediaries to prevent users from uploading unlicensed copyrighted content. CDT is one of the 
Over the last decade, the education sector has embraced the power of data and technology to improve student outcomes, but its efforts to fulfill legal and ethical responsibilities have not always kept pace. When educators, administrators, and educational technology companies fail to meet their responsibilities to protect students’ privacy and appropriately use data about them, they jeopardize public trust and put individuals at risk.
Core to a healthy democracy are free and secure elections. In recent years, sophisticated disinformation operations and aging computerized election infrastructure have eroded the confidence of voters, and placed core democratic principles at risk. 
