The Electronic Frontier Foundation has been calling the lawmakers to revise 31-year-old Electronic Communications Privacy Act to (ECPA) keep update with the today’s technology. Last week, the House of Representatives have passed the revision of the privacy law for the Senate approval.
The revised version of the ECPA has been requested since 2011 according to Digital Trends. Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and other technology companies, individuals and organizations has demanded the revision of the three decades regulation to keep it up to date.
Primary concern for the revision of ECPA is to regulate the way law enforcement agencies to gain access to electronic records and data and the data protection. That includes addressing the provision of the act to provide protection on newer data to require judge-issued warrant to allow access to data in both paper and electronic forms within the previous 180 days. The new amendment required the manner law enforcement agencies to get warrant from judge to access any kind of users data, regardless of how long the data has been stored.
U.S. House of Representatives passed the revision after failed in April 2016 during the Obama administration. The privacy act will now on the way the Senate for approval before going to president for his signature. The revision was sponsored by 109 representatives and deemed as popular bill in Congress.
In order to educate people of the privacy law, EFF invited public to attend the event on Friday, Feb. 17 at the Internet Archive in San Fransisco, California. The event will be attended by lawyers of EFF and experts in the electronic privacy to talk about the constitution and digital privacy. The event is also streamed through Facebook Live.
Watch the Activism Director of EFF Rainey Reitman and International Director Danny O'Brien talk about the future of digital rights in the era of President Trump below:
