As our lives become more digital through social media, e-mail, mobile apps and online accounts, we leave a trail of data throughout the Internet. To help users ensure that they aren’t leaving parts of that trail in unsafe places, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has released its annual “Who Has Your Back?” report. The report evaluated 24 companies on whether or not they followed industry-accepted best practices, told users about government data demands, disclosed policies on data retention, disclosed government content removal requests, and pro-user public policies.
(Related: The EFF questions the U.S. government on its disclosure policy)
The companies who scored the highest were Adobe, Apple, CREDO, Dropbox, Sonic, Wickr, Wikimedia, WordPress.com and Yahoo.
“We entrust countless intimate details about our personal life to digital service providers,” said Rainey Reitman, director of activism at EFF. “Often it’s corporate policies, not legal safeguards, that are our best defense against government intrusion. Technology companies must have the strongest possible policies to protect privacy, and we’re impressed that this group of nine has stepped up and met our ambitious new standards.”
