EFF"s holiday wish to tech companies: more user privacy in 2017

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) asks technology companies to reconsider user privacy in 2017.

As the year comes to an end, the EFF has made a quick assessment of the positives of 2016. The organization noticed that more sites are HTTPS-enabled thanks to “Let”s Encrypt”, an open, free certificate authority providing digital certificates.

But the digital rights advocate says more must be done next year.

In 2017, we’re narrowing our focus to technology companies and challenging them to step up and protect their users in what’s likely to be a difficult year”, the EFF writes.

Here are the top measures the EFF hopes tech companies will take in 2017:

1. Google should enable two-factor authentication without asking for users” phone numbers.
2. Twitter users with two-factor authentication enabled shouldn”t be able to reset passwords over SMS.
3. Twitter”s direct messages should be encrypted end-to-end.
4. Apple”s iMessage and FaceTime should add a second layer of authentication.
5. Google should stop data mining from students” Chromebooks.
6. Facebook ought to allow people to use aliases or nicknames.
7. WhatsApp needs to give users the option to stop data sharing with Facebook.

Founded in 1990, the EFF is an established NGO fighting for user privacy, a leading voice in digital rights debates.