Transistors, the building blocks of modern electronics, are typically made of silicon. Because it’s a semiconductor, this material can control the flow of electricity in a circuit. But silicon has fundamental physical limits that restrict how compact and energy-efficient a transistor can be.

MIT researchers have now replaced silicon with a magnetic semiconductor, creating a magnetic transistor that could enable smaller, faster, and more energy-efficient circuits. The material’s magnetism strongly influences its electronic behavior, leading to more efficient control of the flow of electricity. 

The team used a novel magnetic material and an optimization process that reduces the material’s defects, which boosts the transistor’s performance.

The material’s unique magnetic properties also allow for transistors with built-in memory, which would simplify circuit design and unlock new applications for high-performance electronics.

“People have known about magnets for thousands of years, but there are very limited ways to incorporate magnetism into electronics. We have shown a new way to efficiently utilize magnetism that opens up a lot of possibilities for future applications and research,” says Chung-Tao Chou, an MIT graduate student in the departments of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) and Physics, and co-lead author of a paper on this advance.

Chou is joined on the paper by co-lead author Eugene Park, a graduate student in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering (DMSE); Julian Klein, a DMSE research scientist; Josep Ingla-Aynes, a postdoc in the MIT Plasma Science and Fusion Center; Jagadeesh S. Moodera, a senior research scientist in the Department of Physics; and senior authors Frances Ross, TDK Professor in DMSE; and Luqiao Liu, an associate professor in EECS, and a member of the Research Laboratory of Electronics; as well as others at the University of Chemistry and Technology in Prague. The paper appears today in Physical Review Letters.

Overcoming the limits

In an electronic device, silicon semiconductor transistors act like tiny light switches that turn a circuit on and off, or amplify weak signals in a communication system. They do this using a small input voltage.

But a fundamental physical limit of silicon semiconductors prevents a transistor from operating below a certain voltage, which hinders its energy efficiency.

To make more efficient electronics, researchers have spent decades working toward magnetic transistors that utilize electron spin to control the flow of electricity. Electron spin is a fundamental property that enables electrons to behave like tiny magnets.

So far, scientists have mostly been limited to using certain magnetic materials. These lack the favorable electronic properties of semiconductors, constraining device performance.

“In this work, we combine magnetism and semiconductor physics to realize useful spintronic devices,” Liu says.

The researchers replace the silicon in the surface layer of a transistor with chromium sulfur bromide, a two-dimensional material that acts as a magnetic semiconductor.

Due to the material’s structure, researchers can switch between two magnetic states very cleanly. This makes it ideal for use in a transistor that smoothly switches between “on” and “off.”

“One of the biggest challenges we faced was finding the right material. We tried many other materials that didn’t work,” Chou says.

They discovered that changing these magnetic states modifies the material’s electronic properties, enabling low-energy operation. And unlike many other 2D materials, chromium sulfur bromide remains stable in air.

To make a transistor, the researchers pattern electrodes onto a silicon substrate, then carefully align and transfer the 2D material on top. They use tape to pick up a tiny piece of material, only a few tens of nanometers thick, and place it onto the substrate.

“A lot of researchers will use solvents or glue to do the transfer, but transistors require a very clean surface. We eliminate all those risks by simplifying this step,” Chou says.

Leveraging magnetism

This lack of contamination enables their device to outperform existing magnetic transistors. Most others can only create a weak magnetic effect, changing the flow of current by a few percent or less. Their new transistor can switch or amplify the electric current by a factor of 10.

They use an external magnetic field to change the magnetic state of the material, switching the transistor using significantly less energy than would usually be required.

The material also allows them to control the magnetic states with electric current. This is important because engineers cannot apply magnetic fields to individual transistors in an electronic device. They need to control each one electrically.

The material’s magnetic properties could also enable transistors with built-in memory, simplifying the design of logic or memory circuits.

A typical memory device has a magnetic cell to store information and a transistor to read it out. Their method can combine both into one magnetic transistor.

“Now, not only are transistors turning on and off, they are also remembering information. And because we can switch the transistor with greater magnitude, the signal is much stronger so we can read out the information faster, and in a much more reliable way,” Liu says.

Building on this demonstration, the researchers plan to further study the use of electrical current to control the device. They are also working to make their method scalable so they can fabricate arrays of transistors.

This research was supported, in part, by the Semiconductor Research Corporation, the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF), the U.S. Department of Energy, the U.S. Army Research Office, and the Czech Ministry of Education, Youth, and Sports. The work was partially carried out at the MIT.nano facilities.

The internet is a vast and confusing place no matter your age. Trying to help youth engage with it safely and privately is a complicated topic that touches on many different skillsets and ideas. But just because it’s complicated doesn’t mean it’s impossible. We’ve launched our Online Privacy for Parents and Youth Surveillance Self-Defense guide in hopes to provide a framework for finding solutions that work for you. 

EFF rolls out this crucial resource as state and local governments consider ill-advised laws that cut young people off from essential information and experiences. This particularly harms vulnerable youth and marginalized groups who often find safety in supportive online communities they can't access offline. Such laws also entail age gating, which compromises the privacy of all internet users and stifles young users’ ability to learn, grow, and express themselves.

Young people have unique needs and those needs change over time. Trying to protect from everything all the time is an exhausting process, but the security community has long had a solution for this: security planning (also called threat modeling). The idea is to provide a series of questions designed to help you focus on what’s truly important. When it comes to online privacy, this is as applicable for youth and parents as it is for anyone else. 

We used a security plan as our foundation for this guide because deciding what is and isn’t important is the first step we should all take when assessing our privacy risks. But this isn’t a place for quick fixes, and every young person has their unique needs and considerations. There is no single tool or technology fix that can substitute for spending time learning, and then teaching a young person, how the internet works, how to use it, what sorts of harms exist, and how to navigate those harms.

Solutions are rarely about the tools or software you use. It’s about understanding the threats and concerns you have, and then determining what steps you can take to mitigate those risks. We hope our Online Privacy for Parents and Youth guide can help provide the outline to get the conversation started.

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An open internet where people can freely build, share, and remix each other's work is a powerful engine of grassroots innovation we’ve all benefited from. In recent decades, however, corporations have taken control of an increasing share of this work, giving them a greater ability to stifle challengers and limit our choices. When regulators address this by mandating that  tech giants play fair by requiring interoperability, the gatekeepers respond with a tired refrain: Playing fair puts users’ security at risk.

Unfortunately for these trillion-dollar companies, this gotcha isn’t the end of the conversation. Regulators can ensure that meaningful choice and security thrive.

Lawmakers have been catching up, recognizing that the best way to rein in big tech is to require these oligopolies to open up their platforms to independent developers. As we explained six years ago, mandating interoperability helps prevent the misuse of people’s data and enables more privacy-respecting alternatives. Tech giants, in contrast, have been arguing that our data is safer when they have exclusive control.

Tech Giants Claim Interoperability Means Insecurity

The European Union’s Digital Markets Act (DMA) put interoperability into law under Article 6(7): “gatekeeper shall allow providers of services and providers of hardware, free of charge, effective interoperability with” a designated Core Platform Service they operate. The language describes an unambiguous requirement to remediate vendor lockouts and anti-competitive behavior of the major service operators—it is not optional.

Apple claimed that enforcing this obligation in mobile app stores would put their customers at risk and do irreparable harm to trust in their brand. It’s an argument reminiscent of Apple’s fight against the right to repair, and in both instances the company is fighting to maintain its restrictive ecosystem to stop people from finding better deals elsewhere. Apple has long cultivated a more corporate-controlled experience with the iPhone, but this argument is now also being used for the relatively-more-open Android devices from Google.

In the same year Apple argued against the DMA, Epic Games sued Google for its restrictive terms of service and extractive policies for revenue generated in apps. Google predictably alleged that opening up its platform to other app stores it couldn’t vet would allow harmful apps to be installed. The case was ultimately decided this year in the U.S. federal appeals court for the Ninth Circuit, with the court rejecting this argument, dealing a blow to  Google’s feudal security arrangement, and paving the way for third-party app stores to be delivered as apps via the Google Play Store.

Interoperating Secure Systems Can (and Should) Exist

Policymakers cannot take tech giants’ claims at face value. Companies have every incentive to resist interoperability requirements, because interoperability lowers practical barriers and reduces switching costs for consumers adopting competing services. 

Even where companies offer credible claims from internal technical and security experts, independent experts rarely have the access and information they need to test those claims. Companies have selectively made arguments that security is harmed by interoperability, often in contexts which are to their advantage. These companies are happy to let a general misconception flourish which frames security as inherently opposed to interoperability.

This narrative is wrong. We’ve seen that when interoperability and information security are both set as essential and non-negotiable criteria, secure interoperable systems result—systems that don’t sacrifice the rich features we’ve come to expect of the services we rely on. 

The cross-platform rollout of Rich Communication Services (RCS), and now Message Layer Security (MLS) on top of it is a perfect example of this, creating end-to-end secure messaging by default between Android and iOS. For RCS and MLS, Google was conveniently on the other side of the interoperability argument, campaigning Apple to adopt the standard to overcome the diminished “green bubble” experience iPhone users had when texting non-iPhone users. Once Apple finally agreed to interoperate by implementing common standards, all users benefited from improved messaging security. In cases where legitimate security concerns are raised, these can be assessed and remedied on a case-by-case basis, without sacrificing user agency.

Striking the Right Balance

Retrofitting interoperability into already secure closed systems shouldn’t be done carelessly: it requires regulators strike the right balance of pressure and leniency to allow the time and precision necessary to make these renovations. Any components developed with the assumption of privileged access by trusted parties (e.g. your browser engine) are particularly vulnerable to serious security risks when opened up to unaccountable third parties.

By adapting interoperability and information security as essential design principles, we can expect more safety, but also more freedom.

With regard to the DMA, when security concerns are legitimate, we urge the European Commission to work with companies and outside experts to offer guidance in technical implementation and provide clarity on regulatory compliance. This approach paves a path forward that balances the interest of legal oversight and the needs of the companies alike. 

Policymakers wishing to uproot these unfair platforms of control must do so with care and limit the impact this disruption can have. But security concerns must not act as a lever to indefinitely delay compliance. Closed systems should be impartially evaluated, and if concerns are valid, regulators can allow more time and guidance to be given to companies implementing these changes. One possibility is a tiered approach: offering leniency during an initial period where systems need to be retrofitted to abide by new requirements, followed by a subsequent and ongoing stricter observance of fair play.

Once interoperability and information security are adopted as essential design principles, further development with these rights-enhancing principles in mind will more easily follow. The result will be an internet the world deserves—where we can expect more safety, but also more freedom.

The Brazilian National Data Protection Agency (ANPD) plays a pivotal role in the regulation of digital platforms according to new legislation approved in Brazil. Throughout this year, EFF has presented comments, filed submissions, and met with the agency to emphasize crucial guardrails that the enforcement of new regulations should ensure. 

ANPD is responsible for detailing and applying obligations set in Law n. 15.211/2025, which established rules for the protection of children and adolescents in the digital space. While some provisions establish important privacy safeguards, like prohibiting advertising based on profiling of underage users, the law created mandatory age assurance mechanisms for accessing digital products and services. 

We have raised alarms on the privacy and free expression issues around age-gating the internet. Age verification technology is often inaccurate and privacy-invasive. Examples also show how it’s prone to enforcement overreach, resulting in sites blocked beyond legal requirements. In the UK, providers disproportionately restricted several counseling, support and mental health sites under the Online Safety Act. Current age assurance methods risk wrongly walling off adults with no valid IDs, facial differences, physical disabilities, among others. 

We highlighted these concerns in our comments and submissions underscoring that ANPD should avoid a blanket approach to age assurance obligations. Following the legislation, restrictions should apply only to products and services that are inadequate or prohibited to children and adolescents according to categories already set in regulation, with robust protections against subjective and overbroad interpretations. Guarantees such as access to information, freedom to participate in society and meaningful access to technologies also compound what constitutes the best interests of the child.  

Moreover, we stressed that zero knowledge proofs alone fail to ensure strong user privacy, including safeguards that the law itself sought to secure. Our submission explains why other requirements, such as unlinkability, selective disclosure, batch issuance and processing on device, are crucial for achieving greater levels of protection and mitigating privacy harms. Minimum information being shared to the verifier and no “phoning home” to the issuer of a user’s accepted credentials are conditions that prevent actions like collusion and data sharing about the user. 

We also shared inputs about the scope of the law, asking more clarity on which providers are covered by its obligations and the importance of treating differently non-dominant players like federated networks and free software applications. Without that clarity, this could negatively impact beyond gaming and major platforms that are the main target of these regulations. We elaborated on the agency’s regulation of prevention duties, the relevance of modulating them according to the type and structure of providers, and alerted them that their interpretation should not result in general monitoring obligations. 

On another but related front, we sent comments regarding Brazil’s new internet intermediary rules. Here too, ANPD has a critical regulatory role after a Supreme Court’s decision and presidential decrees changed the liability regime initially set in the law known as “Marco Civil.”  

With the turn to notice and takedown mechanisms and duty of care obligations, we emphasized measures to prevent censorship of protected content. These involve ensuring solid means for appeals of restricted posts, avoiding overreliance on AI-based content moderation, strictly tailoring the application of concepts like duty of care and systemic failure, and not normalizing the blocking of platforms and websites.  

We raised concerns about a trend reflected in the new regulation requiring platforms to proactively report user to authorities with unclear guarantees. Finally, we urged the agency to advance essential transparency and accountability measures for enabling greater public oversight over the application of the new regime. 

As we said before, platform accountability under the new rules ultimately hinges on how accountable its enforcement will be by platforms and state institutions. Rigorous commitment to fundamental rights, including freedom of expression, privacy and data protection, is required so that intended protections don’t instead lead to harms. ANPD must uphold this commitment and make sure that new regulations don’t backfire. 

At MIT’s McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Professor Fan Wang tackles innovative research every day. Her work centers on a fundamental question in neuroscience: How does the brain interact with the body to shape our sensations, emotions, and actions?

Wang and the students in her lab study the neural circuits underlying experiences such as touch and pain, as well as the sensory and motor systems that allow animals to carry out behaviors like eating, drinking, moving, and vocalizing.

This research is inherently exploratory. Understanding how the brain generates complex sensations and behaviors often requires following unexpected findings and pursuing questions whose answers are not immediately clear.

Wang brings this same openness to her mentorship style, giving those within her lab the freedom to explore while providing the scientific guidance needed to navigate uncertainty.

“Innovative research is often inherently high-risk and requires continuous exploration, and adjustment of direction,” Wang says. 

She does her best to share the excitement of promising results alongside her students while also working to alleviate their stress when everything doesn’t go to plan. Ultimately, she aims to create a research process that is “both intellectually stimulating and genuinely enjoyable” for her advisees.

For all these efforts, Wang was honored as “Committed to Caring” through a student-driven nomination and selection process.

Creating space for discovery

Research rarely follows a perfectly predictable path. New results can require revisiting hypotheses, changing direction, or returning to questions that had already been answered. Wang sees this uncertainty as a fundamental part of the research process.

She meets with members of her lab regularly to discuss their work and investigate problems together. These conversations serve to provide both feedback and structure, while also allowing them to work together through the frustrations that can accompany difficult research.

One nominator describes Wang’s “rigorous yet thoughtful scientific training” as tailored to each student’s personality and interests. For this student, weekly or biweekly meetings provide opportunities to review progress and plans, receive detailed guidance, and get critical feedback that supports both academic and professional growth.

Wang strives to create a challenging research environment that is also steeped in encouragement. This is particularly important when students are pursuing questions without obvious answers. When these sorts of questions arise, Wang is quick to work through uncertainty as a team.

For Wang, the goal is not to eliminate the uncertainty that comes with research, but to help students become comfortable navigating it. When results point in an unexpected direction, researchers can return to the questions, discuss what they are seeing, and determine where the evidence should lead them next.

Tailoring support to the student

Wang’s mentorship extends beyond experiments and research questions. She recognizes that each of her advisees is different, with unique interests, relationships, and experiences, and she tries to understand the type of support they need in order to flourish.

Her influence extends beyond the students she directly advises. As a member of the graduate affairs committee for the department, Wang meets with first-year PhDs to offer career advice and help them navigate the challenges of graduate school. Her nominators describe her as “compassionate, approachable, and deeply supportive.”

Wang also recognizes that circumstances outside the laboratory can affect a student’s ability to focus on research. “When something difficult happens in a student’s life, the most important thing I can do is be there to listen with genuine care and without judgment,” she says. “I do my best to support them as a whole person, not just as a researcher, and to be flexible when they need it.”

That flexibility can mean slowing things down, helping a student take a challenge one step at a time, or simply giving them space to talk. At the same time, Wang continues to emphasize the real goals at the heart of graduate education: asking difficult questions and responding thoughtfully to unexpected results.

One nominator describes Wang as bringing “warmth to the lab” — sharing food, engaging in conversations, and showing genuine concern for everyone’s mental well-being. Wang’s gestures create an environment where they feel supported both as researchers and as people.

Fostering trust

Wang describes her position as something of a “mother hen” philosophy. She feels a deep sense of responsibility for every student who joins her lab, and genuinely wants each of them to succeed.

For Wang, mutual trust is what allows mentorship to become an authentic connection. Her advisees can pursue uncertain ideas and navigate difficult moments knowing that their relationship with their mentor does not depend on always getting the right answer. 

“When students know that I truly care about them as people, not just as producers of data, it builds trust,” Wang reflects. “They understand that they are not just workers hired to complete a research project, and that I do not value or judge them solely by their output.”

Since its launch two years ago, MIT’s Doctors Without Gravity club has already amassed more than 100 student members. The club was co-founded by graduate students Anna Wadhwa and Nicole McGaa, who now serve as president and vice president, respectively.

Bringing together students from MIT and Harvard University who are interested in the intersection of medicine, health, and space exploration, Doctors Without Gravity is the student chapter of the Aerospace Medical Association (AsMA) and the Aerospace Medical Student and Resident Organization (AMSRO). The club is open to both undergraduate and graduate students from both institutions.

Students interested in the club do not need to be aero/astro, biology, or pre-med majors, says Wadhwa, noting that the club also has many mechanical engineering students interested in spacecraft mechanics, for example. Wadhwa adds that all majors are welcome to join.

“We want to help increase student awareness and education about aerospace medicine as a potential field that people can study and pursue for a career,” says Wadhwa, who is part of the Aerospace Physiology Lab and pursuing a PhD in aeronautics and astronautics at MIT before returning to Harvard Medical School to complete her medical degree. “We hope to achieve this by connecting the existing communities that are already in place at Harvard, MIT, and Boston by hosting events, lightning talks, and our annual symposium.”

Building a community around space medicine

To bring community members together, Doctors Without Gravity hosts general social events where members can get to know one another and network in a casual setting. They also hold workshops and fireside chats with faculty, researchers, physicians from Massachusetts General Hospital, and residents in training, so students can ask questions, learn more about their research, and ask for career advice. “It’s a great way to get students plugged into the Boston area network of people interested in space medicine,” says Wadhwa.

The club’s director of science communications, Maryam Hiradfar, a graduate student in the Harvard Biophysics Program, says the club’s interdisciplinary membership is one of its greatest strengths.

“Members are a diverse group of students who can all learn from one another. We have members who are not doing active space research or space life research, including myself, but I think just being able to spark that interest in them and hopefully give people direction to get involved in that kind of research if they're interested.”

She adds, “members of the club pursue a wide variety of fields after graduating, including medical consultants, physicians, and research. Some people go into academia and research. There are numerous ways to explore space medicine; it doesn't have to be just as a flight surgeon at NASA. People interested in the field also work at Mission Control to monitor astronauts' health not only while in space, but also on a daily basis, while others do contract work for SpaceX or Axiom Space.”

The club also helps students learn about career opportunities as they arise. Wadhwa notes that if SpaceX, NASA, Axiom Space, Blue Origin, or other groups reach out to the club with job or internship possibilities, the information is quickly passed along to its members.

Faculty advisor and director of the Aerospace Physiology Lab, Associate Professor Lonnie Petersen, adds, “Doctors Without Gravity brings together curious students from many different fields who share an interest in advancing medical care beyond Earth. As faculty advisor, I am proud to support these students, expand their network, and provide opportunities for them.”

Researching the effects of spaceflight on the human body

Hiradfar is conducting research in the Integrated Positron Emission Tomography and MRI lab at the Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging. Much of her time is spent scanning patients on a total-body positron emission tomography system. She does everything from scanning to adapting and developing conventional analysis pipelines and algorithms to analyze this new type of whole-body scan.

Wadhwa is conducting research in the Aerospace Physiology Lab with Petersen. Her work specifically focuses on how the brain reacts to spaceflight, because astronauts experience fluid shifts while in space and it is crucial to understand how those changes affect brain health. She is studying this both on a cellular and a systems level.

Both Wadhwa and Hiradfar say they would like to take flying lessons one day, but their schedules are too busy at the moment.

Helping colleagues with a study, Wadhwa did have the opportunity to take a ride in a centrifuge, accelerating from 1G to 4G — the equivalent of 88 mph.

“The test was designed to simulate the dynamics of flight maneuvers of a jet, in order to study patient physiology. It would go up for five seconds and then back down and then up and down. At the end, you do feel like you just got off a roller coaster, and I had to stay really still for a few minutes after the centrifuge finished,” she says.

Upcoming events

Doctors Without Gravity is already planning for their 2027 Symposium to be held during Massachusetts Space Week, April 19-25, 2027. Additional details will be announced as they become available.

At last year’s annual symposium, the keynote speaker was MIT Professor Dava Newman, Apollo Program Professor and director of the Human Systems Lab, who brought some samples of flight testing materials for everyone to see and touch. In 2025, the keynote was given by Erik Antonsen, director of the Mass General Brigham Space Medicine Fellowship. 

For students interested in exploring the possibilities of aerospace medicine, Doctors Without Gravity offers a place to learn, make connections, and discover the many paths into the field. Students interested in potentially joining the club may join the group’s mailing list.

Police agencies across the U.S. have deployed Automated License Plate Readers (ALPRs) to capture images of passing vehicles along with time, date, and GPS coordinates. While the technology itself isn’t new (ALPRs have existed in various forms for more than 50 years, and in the U.S. since 1998), the surveillance landscape has shifted dramatically. Rapid advances in artificial intelligence and national data sharing have transformed police ALPRs into an interconnected, nationwide tracking network. It is pitched to city councils by law enforcement and private vendors like Flock Safety, Motorola Solutions (Vigilant), and Axon as an essential tool for solving violent crime.

In reality, it is an inherently dangerous infrastructure of mass surveillance.

Since 2012, EFF has worked with others to expose the severe digital rights harms of ALPR systems. For example, we’ve recently documented how these camera networks allow law enforcement to search for immigrants, track peaceful protesters, target Romani communities, and track women seeking reproductive healthcare. Police also routinely use ALPRs for low-level matters like enforcing school residency requirements or investigating noise complaints. Many officers also use ALPR databases to stalk past romantic partners. Recent EFF analysis revealed officers using the system without legitimate justification—logging search reasons like "LOL" and "LMAO."

Understandably, the public backlash to police ALPR technology is accelerating, and state lawmakers across the country are taking action.

New Hampshire enacted the nation’s first state law on ALPR use in 2007, but technological advances and misconduct have driven even more recent legislative action. In 2026 alone, six states enacted laws that limit police use of ALPRs: Connecticut, Kentucky, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon and Washington.

This is a good start, but far more is needed. This blog presents a framework for state legislators who want to stop ALPR mass police surveillance:

1. Just ban it. It is incompatible with a free society and cannot be fixed.
2. In the absence of a flat ban, reduce its harms. Most importantly: limit police use of ALPRs to real-time comparison of passing plates to hotlists; require a warrant to place a plate on a hotlist; impose strict limits on the creation and use of those hotlists; and prohibit the storage of ALPR data (and thus prevent the subsequent search and disclosure of that data).
3. In the absence of a prohibition on storing ALPR data, reduce its harms. Most importantly, place strict limits on police storage, search, and disclosure of ALPR data.
4. Ban three especially dangerous police practices: placement of ALPRs near sensitive locations like hospitals; purchase of ALPR data; and use of ALPR data to try to predict crime.
5. Require transparency about ALPR mass surveillance, including: a 30-day public notice before a city procures police ALPRs; a statewide registry of all police ALPRs; and regular, public audits and statistical reports about police usage.
6. Ensure effective enforcement of all new ALPR restraints, including by means of a private right of action and the exclusionary rule.

These policy battles often unfold locally, so state legislators must ensure that state law is a regulatory floor, never a ceiling. State preemption should never force unwanted camera networks onto communities that have chosen to reject them. Local government must retain authority to enact full bans, deny funding, reject contracts, and decommission existing camera networks.

Table of Contents

• The Gold Standard: Statewide Bans on ALPR Mass Surveillance
• Strict Limits on Real-time Use of ALPRs 
  • Limits on creating hotlists
  • Limits on using hotlists
• Strict Limits on Storage, Search, and Disclosure of ALPR Data
  • Storage limits 
  • Search limits 
  • Disclosure limits 
• Transparency 
• Additional Restrictions
• Enforcement 
• Conclusion

A Note on Scope

As in our previous post on ALPR policy, our focus here is ALPR mass surveillance: the continuous dragnet collection and retention of location data on innocent drivers. Different issues are raised by automated traffic enforcement (ATE) systems, such as standalone red-light or speed cameras that solely photograph and ticket specific traffic violations, without building a searchable network about uninvolved drivers. As such, state laws against ALPR mass surveillance should not cover ATE. This is the approach in at least six states: Connecticut, Minnesota, North Carolina, Oregon, Virginia, and Washington. The most common approach is to exclude ATE from the law’s definition of “ALPR.”

Of course, ATE carries risks and demands legal restrictions too. This includes tight limits on data collection, retention, usage, and disclosure—all of which should be addressed in a different statute. Lawmakers must also actively guard against vendor efforts to piggyback mass surveillance tools onto ATE contracts.

The Gold Standard: Statewide Bans on ALPR Mass Surveillance

Statutory limits cannot make ALPR mass surveillance safe. Because the technology relies on the indiscriminate recording of every driver’s movements, the risks are baked into the system itself. Also, innocent motorists will be menaced by police due to false matches, bad actors will misuse location data, and sensitive personal movements will be exposed to broad government overreach. Promising harsher penalties for officer misuse cannot fix an inherently flawed architecture. Thus, state lawmakers should pursue a complete, statewide ban on ALPR mass surveillance.

First, lawmakers should prohibit all state-level law enforcement agencies from acquiring, retaining, accessing, or using ALPRs or any data derived from them.

Second, they must impose the same prohibition on county, municipal, and other local law enforcement agencies.

These prohibitions should require any agency ending an ALPR program (both state and local) to fully decommission the programs within a strict timeframe. This includes requiring agencies to: physically remove all camera hardware; revoke all user, network, and database access credentials; permanently delete all stored location data; and require vendor certification of compliance.

Third, ban the use of state funds for state or local agencies to acquire, maintain, or access ALPR systems. This must include direct appropriations, law enforcement grants, pass-through funds, and state-administered federal funds. In August 2026, Texas Governor Greg Abbott banned state agencies from spending public funds on Flock cameras.

Fourth, ban state and local agencies from installing or operating ALPRs on state-owned highways, roadways, or public properties. In August 2026, Florida’s Department of Transportation  ordered the removal of all ALPRs from the right-of-way on state highways within 30 days. The order revokes all previously approved permits to install ALPRs, and bars future permits.

An outright prohibition is the only effective way to eliminate this mass surveillance. This follows the lead of municipalities across the country that have already enacted bans. However, where there’s political resistance, state lawmakers might consider a moratorium that prevents further expansion of ALPR networks.

Strict Limits on Real-time Use of ALPRs

In the absence of a ban on police ALPR mass surveillance, state legislators must restrict ALPRs to real-time comparison of passing plates to hotlists. ALPR data is simply too dangerous for police to safely store, search, and disclose. An effective way to do this, as in New Hampshire, is to require deletion of ALPR data within three minutes after collection. That means no ALPR data is stored after comparison to a hotlist, and thus that no ALPR data about unmatched cars can be searched or disclosed.

A state legislature must also reduce the harms of police use of real-time ALPRs by strictly limiting the creation and use of law enforcement hotlists.

Limits on creating hotlists

Roughly speaking, there are two kinds of police hotlists. An agency might link its ALPRs to external hotlists created by another agency, such as the FBI’s National Crime Information Center (NCIC) or a state’s department of motor vehicles. Also, a police agency might link its ALPRs to its own internal hotlist, created by its own officers, of people under investigation. State legislators must strictly limit both.

First, limit the kinds of external hotlists that police agencies may link to. For example, ban police agencies from linking to the NCIC’s “immigration violator” hotlist, which ICE uses to hunt immigrants with the ALPRs operated by police agencies across the country.

Second, if a police agency links to external hotlists, require the agency to update that link every day. Otherwise, drivers may be detained even though they have been removed from the list. This is required by Montana, Nebraska, North Carolina, and Virginia.

Third, forbid officers from adding a plate on a hotlist, absent a warrant from a judge based on probable cause and particularity. Without this judicial check on police power, an officer stalked a potential romantic partner by placing her plate on a hotlist.

As with other laws requiring a warrant (such as the federal Wiretap Act), there should be an exception where: (1) there is an emergency involving immediate danger of death or serious bodily injury to a person; (2) there is no time to acquire a warrant; and (3) there are grounds upon which a warrant could be granted. This exception might apply, for example, when police have probable cause to believe a child has just been abducted. In such cases, the statute must require police to seek a warrant within 48 hours, and if it is denied, to immediately remove the plate from the hotlist.

Minnesota requires a warrant or an emergency to use ALPRs “to monitor or track an individual who is the subject of an active criminal investigation.” In Maine, an ALPR system may use only information based on reasonable suspicion.

Fourth, forbid officers from adding a plate to a hotlist, except in connection with a serious violent crime. This would include investigation of a murder but not pursuit of a traffic scofflaw.

Fifth, forbid officers from adding a plate on a hotlist based, in whole or in part, on: a person’s race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, immigration status, disability, sex, gender identity, or sexual orientation; their political beliefs, associations, or participation in First Amendment-protected activity; or their pursuit of reproductive, gender-affirming, or other health care. Connecticut and Washington forbid use of ALPR systems on these grounds, and Virginia forbids tracking a person based on their protected speech.

Sixth, require officers to log their entry of a plate into a hotlist. This must include the officer’s name and agency, the date of the entry, a narrative description of the reasons for the entry, any case numbers, and an upload of the warrant authorizing the entry. Oregon requires an officer to log “the specific law enforcement purpose of the entry,” and the officer’s name.

Limits on using hotlists

First, if the plate of a passing car does not match a hotlist, laws must require immediate deletion of all ALPR data about that car. New Hampshire state law requires deletion within three minutes. This is the most effective way to limit ALPRs to real-time identification of vehicles and drivers of interest to police, as opposed to amassing a dangerous database of the comings and goings of the entire driving public, available later for retrospective search by police.

Second, if the plate of a passing car does match a hotlist, then limit storage, search, and disclosure of its ALPR data to what is strictly necessary to the investigation that placed the car on the hotlist.

Third, require police officers, before stopping a car because of an apparent real-time match, to visually and independently confirm that the car’s plate number, plate issuing state, and other vehicle characteristics in fact do match the car on the hotlist. Many innocent motorists have been detained and menaced by police because of ALPR false positives. Confirmation is required by Kentucky, Montana, New Hampshire, Oregon, Virginia, and Washington.

Strict Limits on Storage, Search, and Disclosure of ALPR Data

Again, state legislatures should simply ban police use of ALPRs, or at least police storage of ALPR data. Third best is harm reduction through strict limits on storage, search, and disclosure of ALPR data.

Storage limits

First, limit the storage period for ALPR data to days, not months, and then require deletion. More than 99% of the drivers who pass an ALPR are not on a hotlist. Tracking their movements anyway, just in case they are later relevant to a police investigation, is criminalization of the entire driving population. Thus, four states already require deletion after 21 days: Connecticut, Maine, Virginia, and Washington. Even Flock has reduced its default retention period to seven days.

By “delete,” we mean permanently erase it, so it is impossible for anybody to access it again. It is not enough to merely store it in a way that makes it harder to access, such as archiving it, or transferring it from one database to another. In the words of the Virginia statute: “System data shall be purged … in such a manner that such data is destroyed and not recoverable.”

Second, limit the types of ALPR data that can be stored: just a photo of the plate, the AI-based read of the plate number, the date and time, and the location. Conversely, ban retention of photos of people in the car, and of features of the car beyond the plate as well as AI-based reads of those photos (respectively, “facial recognition” and “vehicle fingerprints”).

Many states have enacted such rules. New Hampshire bans ALPRs from “photographing or recording or producing images of the occupants of a motor vehicle.” Missouri bans integration of facial recognition into ALPR systems. New Hampshire and Montana limit ALPRs to “the sole purpose of recording and checking license plates.” Minnesota provides that “data collected by an [ALPR] must be limited to” plate numbers; date, time, and location; and pictures of plate, vehicle, and surrounding area.

Search limits

First, laws should ban “geofence” searches, which are searches in which police use ALPRs to identify all of the drivers present at a particular time and place, based on police claims that one of them might be the suspect they are looking for. Even a warrant cannot justify such general searches, because the Fourth Amendment requires warrants to “particularly” describe the person or car being investigated. These dragnet searches of stored ALPR data are the modern-day equivalent of the colonial-era “writs of assistance,” against which our founders fought a revolution to end.

Second, laws should forbid officers from searching stored ALPR data, unless they first acquire a warrant from a judge based on probable cause and particularity. The constant revelations of bad police searches of ALPR data demonstrate the need for—at the very least—judicial control over this dangerous surveillance technology. A federal judge in Oklahoma recently held that the constitution requires this judicial control, because ALPR mass surveillance invades reasonable expectations of privacy. EFF has filed lawsuits making this demand in California and Wisconsin, along with local ACLU affiliates: SIREN and CAIR-CA v. San Jose, and Wisconsin Council of Churches v. Milwaukee, Racine, Kenosha, and Green Bay.

Three states (Minnesota, Vermont, and Virginia) require reasonable suspicion of a crime before searching ALPR data, and a fourth state (California) requires this from its highway patrol. This is a step in the right direction, but not enough: the decider must be a judge, and the test must be probable cause.

Third, officers should be prohibited from searching stored ALPR data, unless they are investigating a serious violent crime. On the flip side, ban searches for immigrants, protesters, or traffic scofflaws.

Some states have moved in this direction. Missouri limits use of ALPR data “criminal justice” and “lifesaving efforts.” North Carolina bans its use for traffic enforcement. Connecticut bans its use based on race and other protected classes, to identify First Amendment activity, for immigration enforcement, or because of access to reproductive or gender-affirming health care. Idaho bans its use for political activity.

Fourth, police officers must be required to log their searches of stored ALPR data concerning a particular car. This must include the officer’s name and agency, the date and time of search, a narrative description of the reasons for search, any case numbers, and an upload of the warrant authorizing the search. The officer must write the narrative in their own words. A drop-down menu of reasons is no substitute, because it is too easy for officers to dodge an explanation of the actual reasons by clicking a pre-written “reason.”

Many states require officers to log their searches of ALPR data, including California, Connecticut, Idaho, Maryland, Missouri, Montana, New Hampshire, Oregon, and Virginia. In Virginia, this must include an officer’s documentation of both their “specific purpose” to search, and the “associated call for service or case number.”

Disclosure limits

The “disclosure” limits below must broadly address sharing from an agency that collected ALPR data to another entity. This includes an agency opening its database to access and search by another entity. It also includes an agency transferring data from its database to another entity’s database.

First, ban disclosure of ALPR data to any federal or out-of-state agency. Federal and out-of-state agencies often lack the necessary protections of the driving public. Connecticut forbids disclosures to the federal government or agencies in 46 states, unless they have a warrant. California forbids disclosures, unless otherwise permitted by law.

Second, ban disclosure of ALPR data to another agency, unless it follows all of the rules above for an agency’s search of its own data (that is, the ban on geofence searches, the requirement of a warrant, the limitation to investigation of serious violent crimes, and the requirement of an audit trail).

Some states have taken steps in this direction. Utah requires, as a condition of disclosure to a government entity or a defendant in a criminal case, a court order finding reasonable suspicion of crime. Washington forbids disclosure “except as required in a judicial proceeding.” Minnesota and Virginia require the disclosing agency to find reasonable suspicion. Minnesota and Connecticut forbid disclosure unless the receiving agency follows the rules applicable to the disclosing agency.

Third, place strict limits on participation in a multi-agency disclosure network, such as Flock or Vigilant. Connecticut forbids participation “in a system or network that shares” ALPR data, unless it requires all participants to affirm in writing that they will not use or re-disclose that state’s data except in compliance with that state’s laws. Connecticut also forbids “bulk” data disclosure, and Maryland forbids data “upload” to another agency.

Fourth, ban disclosure of ALPR data for purposes of investigating acts and statuses that are lawful in-state. Three states (Illinois, New Jersey, and New Mexico) forbid disclosure to investigate immigration status. Two states (Illinois and New Mexico) forbid disclosure in investigate healthcare that is lawful in-state. One state (New Mexico) forbids disclosure to investigate protected assembly, petition, and speech.

Fifth, ban any sale of ALPR data. Six states do this: Arkansas, Maryland, Oklahoma, Utah, Virginia, and Washington. California forbids its highway patrol from doing so. New Mexico forbids any disclosure to a private entity (or indeed to any non-law enforcement agency). Data brokers are a menace to privacy and other human rights.

Transparency

State lawmakers must ensure that the public has access to ample information about the ALPR mass surveillance in their communities. Many people will use this information to resist ALPRs.

First, state laws should require local governments to provide at least 30 days of public notice before spending funds, accepting grants or private donations, or entering into any contract or pilot program for ALPR technology. All proposed vendor contracts and funding sources must be publicly disclosed prior to approval. This helps local officials to exercise their procurement power to reject ALPRs.

Second, laws should mandate the creation of a centralized, public-facing state registry of all police agencies using ALPRs, and the specific locations of all police ALPRs. Sources like DeFlock and EFF’s Atlas of Surveillance include crowd-sourced maps of ALPR technologies, but they are not exhaustive. This was one of the provisions in Minnesota Minn. Stat. § 13.824, which in part, requires police agencies to notify the state within 10 days of installing any ALPR, and requires a state agency to aggregate this information and publish a master list of the locations of all ALPRs (unless a judge determines that disclosure of a particular ALPR’s location poses a genuine security risk).

Third, mandate regular, independent, public audits of agency ALPR use, access logs, and query justifications to ensure compliance with all applicable laws and policies. Five states (Idaho, Minnesota, Montana, Virginia, and Washington) require regular audits, ranging in frequency from monthly to biennial. Three states (Idaho, Maryland, and Washington) require audits of access logs. Minnesota requires an independent auditor and public access to the results.

Fourth, laws must require each agency operating an ALPR system to publish regular reports on its website detailing key operational metrics. Six states require such reports annually: Connecticut, Maryland, New Hampshire, New Mexico, and Vermont. Arkansas requires them twice per year, and Oregon requires them monthly. These states variously require reporting of: the number of ALPRs, and a list of the locations of fixed ALPRs; the number of hotlists used, and a list of them; the number of plates scanned; the number of apparent matches to hotlists, and how many were actual matches; the number plate reads stored; and the number of searches of stored data, broken down by the purpose and agency of search.

Finally, any new ALPR legislation must maintain a proper balance between transparency and privacy in the use of public record acts (PRAs) to obtain ALPR information. Public records and public scrutiny of ALPR programs have shown that people are harmed by these systems. So lawmakers should not cut off access to public records that document these abuses. For example, the public should have access to operational policies, audit logs, vendor communications, and aggregate statistics. EFF opposes blanket exemptions from PRAs that block public oversight of APRs—such as recent bills in states like Arizona. The better approach to protecting individual location privacy is a flexible, case-by-case balancing test already provided by many PRAs. Also, when a document contains both exempt and non-exempt information—like an audit log that contains both motorists’ plate numbers and officers’ search reasons—open records laws should require disclosure of the latter while withholding of the former.

Additional Restrictions

State lawmakers should adopt three additional bans to curtail the footprint of police ALPR surveillance.

First, ban the placement of ALPRs or the collection of ALPR data near healthcare facilities, immigration services, schools, places of worship, courthouses, food banks, and other sensitive locations. Washington and Connecticut do this.

Second, ban police from purchasing ALPR data. Utah and Washington do so. Also, prohibit police from acquiring ALPR data from a private entity, except by means of a warrant. Washington does so. Utah took a step in this direction, requiring a court order based on reasonable suspicion. Absent this type of rule, police evade limits on seizing data from third parties by simply purchasing it from brokers.

Third, ban police and their vendors from using ALPRs or stored ALPR data to power predictive policing technology. EFF opposes such technology and urges state legislatures to ban it. ALPR companies have been providing law enforcement clients with an “analytics” feature, which ingests data from across police agencies, and produces a report of alleged crime trends, hotspots, and corridors. State legislators should prohibit this dangerous use of ALPR systems and data.

Enforcement

A law without strong enforcement is just a piece of paper. EFF recommends three kinds of enforcement measures, all of which appear in existing ALPR statutes.

First, all privacy laws need a “private right of action,” meaning ordinary people can sue a police department that breaks the law. An excellent model appears in the federal Wiretap Act. It expressly authorizes a lawsuit by “any person” whose personal information is processed “in violation of” this law. Privacy harm is harm, and so a person should have their day in court, even if they cannot prove a collateral harm, such as physical injury or economic loss. Moreover, the Wiretap Act provides a full arsenal of remedies to a successful plaintiff, including injunctive and declaratory relief, liquidated and actual damages, and attorney fees.

At least three states enforce their ALPR statute with some version of a private right of action. These are good first steps but need improvement. Washington comes closest: it allows suit to enforce all ALPR rules and provides all remedies. Unfortunately, the plaintiff must prove “injury,” which may shut the courthouse doors to some people whose data is unlawfully processed. Connecticut allows suit by a person “aggrieved” by violation of some ALPR rules. But a person should be able to enforce all rules, and should not have to prove they were aggrieved. Oregon allows suit against a police vendor that “intentionally or with gross negligence” uses or discloses ALPR data in an unlawful manner. But this does not allow any suit against police, or even against a vendor that systematically violates the rules through ordinary negligence.

Second, privacy laws applicable to the police commonly ensure enforcement through the “exclusionary rule.” This means that if evidence is gathered in violation a privacy law, it must be excluded from court proceedings. This is sometimes called “suppression” or “inadmissibility.” The federal Wiretap Act has a strong version of this rule, clearly excluding evidence derived from violations of all rules. The so-called “good faith” exception has weakened many exclusionary rules, so ALPR statutes should expressly reject this exception (though some courts have interpreted some statutory exclusionary rules to have no good faith exception).

At least three states enforce their ALPR statute with some version of the exclusionary rule. Again, these are good first steps but need improvement:

• Virginia comes closest: “Any evidence obtained as a result of a violation” of some of the ALPR rules “is not admissible.” A better rule would apply to all ALPR rules.
• Connecticut provides that ALPR data “may be admissible … provided such data was collected or otherwise acquired or held or stored in accordance with the provisions of this section” (or obtained pursuant to warrant). A more clear exclusionary rule would “exclude evidence unlawfully processed,” as opposed to “admit evidence lawfully processed.” The exclusionary rule should also extend to data unlawfully used or disclosed (and not just to data unlawfully collected or stored).
• Washington provides that information obtained from “a knowing violation” of some of the statute’s rules is “inadmissible.” But the exclusionary rule should apply to all substantive limits (not just some), and to all violations (not just knowing ones).

Third, police agencies and their private contractors that recurringly violate ALPR rules should be forbidden from using ALPRs at all. In New Hampshire, if an agency “repeated[ly]” violates the ALPR statute, the state department of justice may “seek an injunction banning [its] use” of ALPRs. In New Mexico, if a vendor “fails to comply with” that state’s ALPR law, it “may be subject to … suspension of authorization or termination of access.”

Some states impose workplace discipline or criminal penalties on officers who violate ALPR laws, including Connecticut, Idaho, and Missouri. This is no substitute for the three types of strong enforcement measures above. ALPRs are a systemic problem requiring institution-wide enforcement of legal constraints, and not just episodic sanctions against individual officers.

Conclusion

Mass surveillance ALPRs fundamentally threaten digital rights, making an outright statewide ban on police ALPRs the only effective way to fully protect privacy and safety.  The next best thing a legislature can do is limit ALPRs to real-time comparison of passing cars to hotlists, by banning storage of ALPR data beyond a few minutes. If a legislature allows storage, it must impose a tight deletion deadline (days and not months), and strict limits on search and disclosure. A legislature must also ensure transparency and enforcement. 

For convenience here is a concise list of EFF’s state legislative goals.

Guide Includes Easy, Quick Ways To Identify and Protect Against Online Threats

SAN FRANCISCO – The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has published “Online Privacy for Parents and Youth,” a new guide to help families protect themselves online. 

"Parents don’t need to be technology experts to help their children navigate the digital world safely” said EFF Public Interest Technology Director Babette Ngene. “At EFF, we believe in empowering families with the knowledge and confidence to make informed decisions about their digital lives. It’s about meeting families where they are and giving parents the guidance they need to have meaningful conversations with their children about digital safety, based on what works best for their families.” 

EFF launches this crucial resource as state and local governments consider enacting well-meaning but ill-advised laws that cut young people off from essential information and experiences, particularly harming vulnerable youth and marginalized groups who often find safety in supportive online communities they can't access offline. Such laws also entail age gating, which compromises the privacy of all internet users and stifles young users’ ability to learn, grow, and express themselves. 

“Deciding how to help your young people use the internet—including engaging with video games, social media, web search, and everything else—is a complicated topic that touches on many different skillsets and ideas,” said EFF Senior Security and Privacy Activist Thorin Klosowski. “But ultimately it's up to families – not governments – to decide when and how to engage with these sorts of questions.” 

Each young person has unique needs, and, just like their wardrobe, that changes as they age. Parents can engage in thoughtful planning to find the best, most efficient solutions that evolve along with their children.  

EFF’s guide is about helping parents explore their concerns and identify the threats their children face – like trusting AI chatbots or sharing personal information with strangers – and then determine steps they and their children can take to mitigate those risks while still using the games, educational materials, and communication platforms that help them grow. 

The guide also compiles links to parental control setup documentation for a variety of popular devices and platforms, and advises parents on quick, easy tasks they can perform to advance their children’s online privacy. 

For the guide: https://ssd.eff.org/module/online-privacy-for-parents-and-youth

Contact:  ThorinKlosowskiSenior Security and Privacy Activistthorin@eff.org

There’s a new archive of all the papers from twenty-five years of the Workshop on Economics and Information Security (WEIS).

Really nice resource. It’s fun to reread my 2002 essay on the economics of information security.

Innovation, reflection, and celebration will blend at the Boston Symphony Orchestra this week, where MIT composer Tod Machover’s inventive new work “already and not yet” will see its world premiere on Thursday.

Machover, one of the world’s most prominent composers, has incorporated multiple ongoing interests into the new symphony, including AI tools interacting with the musicians, and a piece that is structured as a meditation on the crisis and promise of democracy. 

“An orchestra is an interesting ensemble to use for thinking about how different groups of people can relate to each other,” says Machover, who is the Muriel R. Cooper Professor of Music and Media and faculty director at the MIT Media Lab, where he also serves as director of the Opera of the Future group. 

He adds: “John Cage used to say one way to think of a piece of music is that it should be like the society you’d like to live in. I was always inspired by this idea, and thought of the orchestra — and constructed this new piece — in this way.” 

If the innovation in “already and not yet” comes from its use of artificial intelligence, and the reflection pertains to democracy, the celebration involved in the event partly relates to MIT: The performances are coordinated with the MIT Media Lab’s 40th anniversary celebrations occurring this week. Machover has been a member of the Media Lab since it opened. 

“In many ways, the piece is also an homage to the lab and to its spirit of invention and reinvention,” Machover says. 

The acclaimed conductor Kent Nagano — a longtime collaborator and advocate for Machover’s music — will lead the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s performances, which are taking place Oct. 22-24 at Boston’s Symphony Hall. 

Inspired by the possibilities

Machover’s extensive career has often featured the invention of new technologies within his compositions. Among many other technologically related projects, he has led the development of hyperinstruments, which can be responsive to the playing techniques of musicians and expand their range of expression; renowned cellist Yo-Yo Ma is among those who have performed Machover’s work using them. 

Working across diverse musical forms, Machover’s 2010 opera “Death and the Powers” was a Pulitzer Prize finalist. He has also used locally sourced and community-created sounds as additional aural layers in his “City Symphonies,” which have been created around the world. The next project in the series, underway in Seoul, South Korea, is scheduled for premiere in September 2027.

“I’ve always been inspired by the possibilities of technology and the expressive potential it opens up,” Machover says. “It is kind of the core language of our time and something we have to grapple with so that it evolves in the most positive human-enhancing ways. I feel so fortunate that I have been able to pursue this vision at MIT, and particularly at the Media Lab, for all these years.” 

Machover’s “already and not yet” reflects on democracy in multiple ways. One is through the form of the composition, which has three movements relating to different stages of democracy. In the first movement, “Smash Up,” strings and winds eventually get crowded out by what Machover calls the “oppressive, aggressive” sounds of brass, percussion, and electronics. The second movement, “Wake Up,” presents a moment to reflect and regroup, but little by little weaves together a thriving melodic and textural presence. The third movement, “Stand Up,” involves more vigorous interplay between all the musicians, inviting the players to participate in establishing a new kind of balance between individuality and community. 

In this way, “already and not yet” conceptualizes the orchestra as a way of representing the stress and revival of democracy, and uses a “Live AI” system created at the Media Lab — along with layers of electronics crafted in Machover’s studio — to emphasize this struggle and progression. In the second movement of “already and not yet,” the AI tools aim to underscore the distinctiveness of each instrumentalist, establishing an ensemble of soloists; in the third movement, more broadly representing the regrowth of a polity, the AI system aims to find common ground, building new sonic bridges across the orchestra and extending it out into the hall using extra, specially installed loudspeakers. 

“I’ve used the way the orchestra plays, how much is scripted and how much freedom they have, and how they negotiate their relationship with the conductor, as part of the story,” Machover says. “It’s not said explicitly, but I think the players and the audience will feel it. It’s a whole society up there on stage, and the liveliness and ever-changing nature of the AI systems for this piece both dramatize and encourage a new way of playing and listening.”

Machover credits two PhD candidates in his group at the Media Lab for their extensive work on the project: Manaswi Mishra, who designed and built the AI systems for the performances, and Ana Schon, who will be doing the complex sound mixing in Symphony Hall during each performance. 

Reflections of an AI veteran

For Machover, the application of machine learning and AI is hardly a newfound idea; he has been exploring the concept for decades, giving him a distinctive perspective on this topic du jour. 

“The current generation of AI, especially generative AI, has capabilities that are different than AI from 20 or 30 years ago,” Machover says. “It’s good at certain things that were hard to do 20 years ago, but less good at some things that were easier to do back then.” 

When he designed a hypercello for Yo-Yo Ma, for instance, those systems would analyze Ma’s sound, playing techniques, and expressive intent in order to shape the extensions of the instrument. Today’s AI tools “are less good at analysis, but very good at detecting significant features and patterns in the audio itself, information that can be leveraged to powerful musical effect,” Machover says. 

“Current systems aren’t so good at what we did [for Yo-Yo Ma], like trying to understand the performance or the music itself,” Machover says. “But evolving AI models do an incredible job — especially in Manaswi’s magical systems — at establishing an immediate, creative dialogue with musicians, producing sophisticated and surprising augmentations that in turn inspire performers or composers to discover truly new ideas.”  

Ultimately, Machover says, “I think this piece — through its technology, its ‘story,’ and its sounds — is meant to take people on a journey of recognition about where we are at this moment in time and where we might be going. It’s meant to be an optimistic and inspiring piece.” He adds, “The idea, expressed in the work’s title, is that we’re so lucky to be at this place in this moment, even with everything that’s wrong and in critical need of repair. We really are. At the same time, it’s so urgent to realize that the vision of a just and flourishing society, for which the foundation exists, isn’t finished at all. Not only that, it’s in crisis. So this is the last time to be complacent, or discouraged.”

For all of that, Machover also expresses hope that the audience at Symphony Hall can simply engross themselves in the music itself, and find it compelling on its own terms. 

“My biggest wish is that people listen to this piece as music — forget about the AI or the story and just get swept along,” Machover says. “There’s one melody in this piece that’s trying to express itself in the first movement, and appears in fragmented form in the second movement. In the third movement, it’s the center of everything, a kind of vision of resolve, hope, and purpose. If people come out of the performance and don’t have some part of that melody in their heads, I’d be surprised. I hope that audiences listen for that, try to hold on to it, and see where it might lead.”

The piece was commissioned by the Boston Symphony Orchestra and supported by the New Works Fund of the Massachusetts Cultural Council.

In a victory for data privacy, a federal court in New York definitively ruled that the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) violated the law when it disclosed millions of federal employee records to DOGE agents. In a summary judgment ruling issued on October 20, 2026, the court found that OPM violated two provisions of the Privacy Act—one restricting disclosure of personal records between agencies and another requiring agencies to protect the security and confidentiality of records.

Since the case was filed, many DOGE agents have left the government and OPM has rescinded their database access. However, OPM should still clean up the cybersecurity mess it created. The court will decide the remedy at a later date.

"By virtue of the Court’s summary judgment ruling, OPM’s decision to grant DOGE Agents broad access to its systems of recordings containing [personally identifiable information (PII)] has been held unlawful," Judge Denise Cote wrote.

"The record also provides no support for a finding that it was the pursuit of a modernization agenda that prompted OPM to grant sweeping and expedited access to a score of DOGE Agents to its systems of records containing PII," she added.

OPM maintains databases of highly sensitive personal information about tens of millions of federal employees, retirees, and job applicants. Starting in January 2025, OPM disclosed data to the U.S. DOGE Service, initially led by Elon Musk. This disclosure violates the federal Privacy Act of 1974, a watershed anti-surveillance statute that prevents the federal government from abusing our personal information.

EFF sued OPM and DOGE because this data disclosure violates the Privacy Act. We represent unions of federal employees – the American Federation of Government Employees and the Association of Administrative Law Judges – and individual employees. We seek injunctive and declaratory relief. We filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.

Our co-counsel are Lex Lumina LLP, State Democracy Defenders Fund, and The Chandra Law Firm LLC.

Donate to EFF

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Related Cases: American Federation of Government Employees v. U.S. Office of Personnel Management

Establishing a human presence on the moon will require state-of-the-art spacecraft, spacesuits, life-support systems, and some of the most sophisticated technology humans have ever built. It will also require figuring out where to put the garbage.

A future lunar outpost will receive a steady stream of supplies from Earth, bringing packaging and other materials that could quickly become a mountain of waste. Meanwhile, astronauts will need tools, replacement parts, and materials to maintain the outpost, and shipping supplies from Earth is astronomically expensive. An MIT student team has won first prize in a NASA competition for developing a way to turn that trash into useful materials for lunar living.

The Composites for Extraterrestrial Recycling By Engineering the Reuse and Upcycling of Zotek (CERBERUZ) team was named first-prize winner in both the Prototype and Digital Twin tracks of NASA’s LunaRecycle Challenge. The challenge — part of NASA’s Centennial Challenges series — asked participants to design and develop solutions that can reuse, recycle, or upcycle space waste and improve the sustainability of longer-duration lunar missions. Teams were encouraged to envision solutions that not only addressed recycling in deep space, but could also have applications on Earth.

The CERBERUZ team’s system turns otherwise unusable waste into new composite materials, grinding it down, melting it, and molding it into useful parts. The approach reduces the need for costly shipments from Earth and keeps bulky packaging from piling up in lunar landfills.

“Waste packaging materials will inevitably accumulate when a lunar outpost is built, and at the same time, outpost construction and maintenance will require a steady supply of new materials, including replacement parts,” says George Lordos, a research scientist in the MIT Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics and System Design and Management, and the lead advisor for the CERBERUZ team. “Recycling waste materials into such parts can help reduce materials needed to be launched from Earth.”

Waste not, want not

CERBERUZ separates non-biological waste into two streams: thermoplastics and everything else. All materials are then ground into a fine powder and mixed together. The powder mixture is loaded into an injection molding machine, where the thermoplastics melt with the remaining materials suspended in the molten plastic. The mixture is finally injected into a mold, producing high-quality composite parts that can be quickly and reliably replicated.
 

The team’s approach is especially notable for its treatment of Zotek F30, a closed-cell thermoset foam commonly used in aerospace packaging. Mixed thermoplastics and thermoset foams like Zotek F30 have no established recycling solutions, even on Earth. CERBERUZ takes a unique approach to this challenge by incorporating the Zotek as a reinforcing filler for the molten feedstock.

Zotek presents another peculiar engineering challenge that makes the need to break it down even more pressing: It is so lightweight that enormous quantities are needed to produce a useful mass of material. “We had big shipments of Zotek coming in, and one person can carry them on their head like it’s nothing,” says José Soto, a graduate student in AeroAstro and the team's pre-processing lead. “The box is the size of a person.”

The team designed the process around the constraints of operating far from Earth. Because CERBERUZ uses mechanical methods powered by electricity, it doesn’t rely on water-intensive recycling processes or chemical depolymerization, and produces no secondary chemical waste. This could allow packaging and other materials delivered to a lunar outpost to become a local source of manufacturing feedstock, giving astronauts the ability to produce needed items from material they already have on hand. 

“We set out to build something that would actually make sense on the moon, not just in a lab,” says Lanie McKinney, a graduate student in AeroAstro and team lead for CERBERUZ. “That means no water and no chemicals you can’t replace. Every design choice we made was driven by those constraints. And we don’t want to recycle just for recycling’s sake; we want to make useful things. Part of how we framed the problem was to create a system that can process nearly any feedstock and turn it into a wide array of components, giving more utility than producing a single item.”

Alongside the physical recycling system, the team developed DEIMOS, or Digital Environment for Intelligent Modeling of Operational Systems, a digital twin of its injection molding machine. Using data collected during actual production runs, DEIMOS models how different combinations of recycled materials and part geometries will behave during manufacturing, predicting factors including mold fill, warpage, and shrinkage risk. Ultimately, the digital twin could help astronauts determine how recycled materials will perform before committing limited resources to manufacturing a part on the moon.

Where ideas become hardware

The CERBERUZ team grew out of the MIT Space Resources Workshop, a co-curricular initiative of students passionate about designing, building, and testing systems to support future moon and Mars exploration. Founded in 2017, the workshop is well-known for building teams that take on, and conquer, grand challenges in NASA-sponsored competitions.

The team brings together undergraduate and graduate students from four MIT departments: Aeronautics and Astronautics, Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, and Materials Science and Engineering. Professor Jeffrey Hoffman, a former NASA astronaut, and Lordos served as advisors for the team. 

“What impresses me most about this team is the quality of leadership,” says Lordos. “Lanie McKinney has been an outstanding team lead, and the co-leads — Palak Patel on manufacturing and materials characterization, Lilly Etzenbach on the digital twin, and José Soto on pre-processing — have each built and managed subteams doing cutting-edge research in lunar sustainability.”

The win caps nearly two years of work on the challenge. CERBERUZ was selected as a Phase 1 winner in 2025 before advancing through Phase 2 and earning milestone prizes in both tracks on its way to the final demonstration in summer 2026. The team earned $925,000 in prize money over the course of the challenge, and hopes to reinvest their winnings in the Space Resources Workshop, funding equipment and facilities that will enable future teams to rise to ever-more-complex challenges. Those advances will help turn a return to the moon into something more permanent: a human presence, built to last.

“If we’re able to reduce the amount of waste that’s inevitably going to be left on the moon, rather than letting it pile up like a landfill,” Soto says, “we can preserve both the beauty of the moon and make exploration more efficient and sustainable. And perhaps we can inspire people back on Earth to take another look at our trash and find more ways to recycle or reuse it.”

CERBERUZ team leads are Lanie McKinney, Palak B. Patel, Lilly Etzenbach, and José Soto. Team members include Sophia Augier, Sophie Berkvist, Ariella Blackman, Keira Boone, Constantine Bulavenko, Seth Burrowes, Andrew Chen, Alex Chen, Chris Choe, Johnson Cristales, Brady Cruse, Hillel Dei, Natalie Hatzigeorgiu, Intia Ibnah, Avishai Jeselsohn, Mollie Johnson, Uma Kirk, Christopher Kwon, Jessica Meza, Juan Orrego, Giuliana Pertuz, Jordan Prawira, Brandy Romine, Dustin Wang, Madison Wood, and Adrian Yang. 

The oxygen in about every other breath we take comes from microscopic cells — phytoplankton — drifting in the surface of the ocean. Among them is Prochlorococcus, the smallest and most abundant photosynthetic organism in the seas. It single-handedly accounts for roughly 10 percent of all the carbon that the land and the oceans pull from the atmosphere each year. 

Since its discovery decades ago by MIT Institute Professor Sallie (Penny) Chisholm and colleagues, Prochlorococcus has been known as the loner microbe, free-floating along and drifting through sunlit ocean waters. Because it lives and dies quickly near the water’s surface, Prochlorococcus was thought to contribute very little to the ocean’s biological pump, the natural process of moving carbon into the deep ocean and storing it there. 

Now, a team of MIT researchers in the Chisholm lab has found that picture is incomplete. 

In an open-access study published in Nature Communications, they demonstrate Prochlorococcus can also form biofilms, sticky communities of cells attached to surfaces. The finding suggests that the tiny organism has another way of life, and one that could play a much larger role in carbon sequestration. 

"We can now think of Prochlorococcus as existing in two very different — but connected — worlds," says lead author Maya Anjur-Dietrich, a postdoc in the MIT Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE). "When these cells are planktonic, they're drifting through nutrient-poor water and could be hundreds of cell lengths from their nearest neighbors. On a particle, they experience a totally different physical and chemical world."

The research team also found evidence that attached Prochlorococcus is common in the ocean, from the sunlit surface down to 1,000 meters. 

A sticky surprise

The lab was noticing hints of stickiness for years. There would be clumps of cells at the bottom of tubes with old cultures, and an earlier study from the lab showed that some strains attach to chitin particles. 

When Anjur-Dietrich joined the lab, she decided to study the "attachment phenomenon" in detail in diverse "ecotypes" of Prochlorococcus that had been isolated from different ocean regions. The researchers tested strains from every major branch of the Prochlorococcusfamily tree. "We saw the biofilm-formation phenotype across every Prochlorococcus strain we've tested," she says. "It was a huge surprise!"

In a typical culture, about 6 percent of cells stuck to the walls of the tube. But if only the cells that stuck were transferred into fresh media, repeated many times over many generations, eventually roughly 85 percent of the cells in these populations were attached. 

Same instructions, different performance

The sticky characteristic passed from parent cells to their offspring, but over time, and with selection, sticky populations could return to a planktonic state. When the team sequenced the genomes of cells in the two different states, they found no mutation responsible for adherence. Genetically identical cells can exist in either state, and populations can flip from mostly attached to mostly free-floating and back again.

"These cells all share the same genome, or set of instructions, but they're changing what parts of the instructions are read out at specific points," says Anjur-Dietrich. "You could think of it like different musicians all working from the same sheet music — the notes are not going to change, but each person decides whether to play loudly or softly, quickly or slowly."

"What's cool about this is that it means, in principle, any cell could be in either state, depending on gene expression, and this could change over the course of a cell's lifetime and that of its descendants," she says. "To go back to the analogy, the same musician could play the same piece very slowly and loudly, and then 10 minutes later go back and decide to play very quickly and softly."

Life in a biofilm changed how the cells behave. Attached cells produced more chlorophyll and grew more slowly than free-floating cells, but they released almost twice as much organic carbon into the surrounding water. Cells also didn't stay stuck forever. Some broke away from their biofilm and went on to start new free-floating populations.

Why would a microbe live both ways? 

"In general, diversity in a population probably ensures survival in a variable environment," says Anjur-Dietrich. "Environmental and nutrient conditions in the ocean can be unpredictable, and having multiple lifestyles could mean that some part of the population could always be thriving."

Free-floating cells likely have better access to sunlight and can spread farther, she explains. Attached cells might gain nutrients made by neighboring microbes and protection from predators, but increase their probability of eventually sinking out of the sunlit zone.

A new piece of the carbon puzzle

To find out whether attachment also occurs in nature, the team analyzed DNA from seawater samples filtered by particle size, combining their own data with the global Tara Oceans Project database. They found particle-attached Prochlorococcus in every sample. In sunlit waters at Station ALOHA research site in Hawaii, for example, about 12 percent of the microbial community on particles was made up of Prochlorococcus.

If Prochlorococcus attaches to sinking particles out of the sunlit zone, the researchers estimate it could carry about half a billion metric tons of carbon into deeper ocean waters each year.

"The ocean is a critical part of Earth's climate system," says Anjur-Dietrich. "The vast majority of carbon fixed from atmospheric carbon dioxide (by organisms like Prochlorococcus!) is recycled by being consumed by organisms along the food chain. Eventually, that carbon will return to the atmosphere as a result of processes that break down organic carbon compounds during digestion and respiration."

Some of that carbon, however, sinks to the seafloor, where it can stay locked away for hundreds of years. Estimates of how much carbon is stored this way are based on assumptions about which organisms sink and how nutrients are recycled on the way down.

Anjur-Dietrich stresses that the team's number is a starting point. “Our estimate about Prochlorococcus is a very rough, first-order estimate that depends on how much Prochlorococcus is present at the surface, how much sticks to particles, and how it might be consumed on the way to the seafloor," she says. “But, what's really exciting is that a lot of these factors are dependent on microbial biology, and we've figured out that Prochlorococcus has a role in those processes."

For Chisholm, the senior author, the findings confirm a long-held suspicion. “We have been wondering about this possibility for some time. There were hints in the way our cultures behaved," she says. "It is wonderful to finally begin to understand the phenomenon, and it gives us more license to speculate about the impact 'attachment' has on carbon fluxes in the oceans."

"The fact that Prochlorococcus can attach to surfaces puts it front and center in terms of playing a key role in 'pumping' carbon from the atmosphere to the deep sea," Chisholm adds.

More to learn 

Building on their finding that Prochlorococcus is attached to particles in the ocean, the team has already followed up with a study that estimates what share of the total population — meaning both free-floating and attached cells — is particle-associated and how that fraction might change across ocean basins, again leveraging their own data and archived genetic data. "If we knew that, we could make huge improvements in predicting how much carbon from Prochlorococcus is sequestered," says Anjur-Dietrich.

She is also curious about how Prochlorococcus affects its neighbors on a particle. While still in the sunlit ocean, attached cells keep photosynthesizing and releasing carbon. That could give other microbes an easier meal than the particle itself. 

As she puts it, "maybe Prochlorococcus is providing the other microbes with cake when otherwise they'd have to eat cardboard." 

If so, particles carrying Prochlorococcus might break down more slowly as they sink. She has begun early experiments with chitin particles, Prochlorococcus, and a chitin-eating microbe to test the idea.

The more researchers learn about Prochlorococcus, the more complex its existence appears; the tiny cell can drift alone, join a community, switch between lifestyles, and potentially attach to particles that sink toward the deep ocean. 

Chisholm expects the tiny cell still holds many more secrets. "I'd love to be able to check back in 50 years and see what they are," she says.

Additional MIT CEE co-authors are Katelyn G. Jones, James I. Mullet, Nhi N. Vo, Kurt G. Castro, and Sierra M. Parker, and builds on the work of former MIT postdocs Nikolai Radzinski and Gio Capovilla. The work was funded by Simons Foundation grants and the Burroughs Wellcome Fund. 

Eleven years ago, MIT Lincoln Laboratory staff member Robert Shin was challenged by a colleague to find a way to extend the resources of Beaver Works — a joint education and research center created by the MIT School of Engineering and the laboratory — to some of the best and brightest engineering students around the country. A year later, in summer 2016, the MIT Beaver Works Summer Institute (BWSI) was born. 

BWSI, which celebrated its 10th anniversary this summer, is a four-week program designed to offer high school students a transformational hands-on experience while teaching them skills to fuel their future studies and careers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM).

"As I look back at the last 10 years of BWSI, I am humbled and grateful to be a part of this amazing journey," says Shin, who has served as the founding director and then the STEM program director for BWSI since 2016. "What started as an idea has evolved into something much bigger and more impactful than we ever imagined. Each year, our students have exceeded every expectation through their curiosity, hard work, willingness to accept challenges, and perseverance." 

Originally launched with a class of 46 students from 24 high schools across the country, the BWSI program has seen steady growth each year, both in the number of students enrolled and the total number of courses offered. In the first year of the program, BWSI offered just a single course — the Rapid Autonomous Complex Environment Competing Ackermann-Steering Robots (RACECAR) course — that challenged students to program vehicles to navigate a racetrack full of obstacles. A decade later, BWSI now offers 14 courses spanning fields such as artificial intelligence, data science, cybersecurity, quantum computing, and microelectronics to more than 440 students. 

"The nation needs innovators, problem-solvers, and leaders to tackle the national security challenges of tomorrow in a rapidly evolving world," says Melissa Choi, director of Lincoln Laboratory. "By bridging the gap between classroom theory and practical application, BWSI inspires the next generation of scientists and engineers and exemplifies the laboratory’s commitment as a federally funded research and development center to help develop the future STEM workforce." 

Beaver Works Operational Manager Lisa Kelley has been with the program from the start, for both the founding of Beaver Works in 2010 and the launch of BWSI in 2016. She recalls welcoming the first class of 46 students, adding that she never could have imagined the impact that BWSI would have a decade later. 

"Today, I look at the thousands of students who have come through our programs with immense pride and gratitude," says Kelley. "What makes me most proud is that we built something both exceptional and accessible, a program that challenges students at the highest level while expanding opportunity." 

Beyond the summer curriculum, BWSI has expanded throughout the years by offering eight-week outreach programs in the spring and fall that build technical foundations for high school students in grades 9–11 prior to entering the competitive summer program. One of these fall programs is "Girls Who Can," which focuses on engaging young girls with STEM. Additionally, in 2022 and 2023, BWSI launched national challenges that adapted the content of two of their courses (Build a CubeSat and Designing for Assistive Technology) into an eight-month team-based format with mentors. 

The BWSI curriculum has inspired collaborators to create similar programs in countries such as Greece, Japan, Canada, Mexico, Italy, and Spain, as well as parallel programs in schools and universities across the country. 

Beaver Works Manager Joel Grimm says that the growth of the program has continued to challenge and inspire him from year to year. "To me, Beaver Works and BWSI mean embracing change — saying 'yes' to something new and innovative," Grimm says. "I encourage students to step out of their comfort zone and see what’s possible, and I hope that more students understand that BWSI is a unique opportunity to take a risk and stretch beyond their expectations." 

After participating in BWSI, many students continue to engage with the program. One example is Diptanshu Sikdar, who participated in BWSI for two summers as a high school student before returning as a teaching assistant for the Quantum Software and Software Development courses. 

"BWSI transformed my curiosity about quantum computing into a strong foundation and introduced me to the beauty of algorithm design and computer science," says Sikdar, who went on to pursue a PhD in quantum science and credits his experience with BWSI for building connections that led to his current job at MITRE. "It was much more than a summer program for me; it was the point of origin for my quantum journey and the foundation for my growth as a student, researcher, teacher, and leader." 

It’s this type of transformational experience that Shin hopes BWSI students will continue to have well into the future. 

"I believe the last 10 years of BWSI were just the beginning," Shin says. "The BWSI program at MIT will continue to be impactful, and we see a future where all students interested in programs like BWSI will have an opportunity to participate and learn. Wouldn’t that be wonderful? It is not only possible, but we owe that to our next generation." 

To learn more about BWSI and how to support its mission, visit the BWSI website or email the administrator.

Justin.sh is reporting on a confidential Cellebrite document that has been leaked to him:

Cellebrite calls it Advanced Unlocks (AU from here on), not to be confused with the “advanced unlocking services” they’ve marketed for years. A press release from earlier this year confirms AU is a new product for 2026.

[…]

According to Cellebrite, AU:

• is a “next-generation AFU vector that is more resilient to Apple’s OS changes”
• works with Stolen Device Protection enabled, which tightens USB restrictions
• is enabled by a dedicated appliance with a stated range (!) of about 8 meters...

Dozens of surgical procedures require doctors to connect two pieces of tissue together in a delicate stitching process. It happens in triple heart bypass, C-sections, and surgeries to repair hernias and tendons. Today, those procedures are mostly done by surgeon-controlled robots or by hand, and the margin for error is small. Even small errors in suturing or stapling can lead to leaks with devastating consequences to patients.

SanaHeal wants to make connecting tissues more like using tape. The company has developed a bioadhesive technology that can rapidly stick to wet and uneven surfaces and form air- and fluid-tight seals to simplify surgical procedures. The company’s product, first developed at MIT, was inspired by sticky materials in nature like barnacles and spider webs.

SanaHeal’s technology has already gained regulatory approval to stop trauma bleeding, and next year it will enter human trials to help control bleeding during surgeries and for repair of various injured tissues.

The startup, which collaborates with larger companies for clinical trials and commercialization, believes those applications only scratch the surface of the technology’s potential.

“If someone is struggling to put something on biologic tissues, we can help,” SanaHeal founder and chief technology officer Hyunwoo Yuk SM ’16, PhD ’21 says. “The current way of doing this is by suturing through tissues, which is painful and difficult to do perfectly during surgery. Our solution is more like a Post-it note. It’s much less invasive and easier to use with surgical robots. Also, faster and more efficient surgical procedures have potential to help lower ever-increasing costs of surgeries that are significantly straining the health care system.”

A sticking problem

Yuk conducted his master’s and PhD in the lab of Xuanhe Zhao, MIT’s Uncas (1923) and Helen Whitaker Professor of Mechanical Engineering. Initially, his research focused on the mechanical properties of soft materials called hydrogels, but about halfway through the program, he pivoted to study their biomedical applications, in part motivated by a serious accident his family member was involved in.

“We were looking at how to make these hydrogels better adhesives, and because we are in Boston, we started working with doctors and medical schools in the surrounding area,” Yuk recalls.

Those conversations made him realize how often surgeons have to seal or attach tissues. That process usually involves staples or sutures, which can cause more damage to tissues, trigger immune responses, and lead to scar tissue or infections.

“These are often tiny tissues that sometimes require needles thinner than a human hair to be used during microsurgery,” Yuk explains. “They are very difficult surgeries, and they can lead to all kinds of complications.”

Yuk realized his hydrogels offered a better solution. The materials, which are made from polymers and water, are biocompatible, meaning they minimize immune responses and scar tissue buildup. Early versions of the technology acted like double-sided tape, absorbing water from wet tissues using polyacrylic acid — an absorbent material used in diapers — to adhere to them in a matter of seconds.

Yuk had planned to stay in academia after his PhD, but as he learned more about what it would take for the technology to reach patients, he decided to focus on leading that work.

“It’s very difficult for innovations to make it into the clinic and help patients if you’re in an academic research lab,” Yuk says. “We didn’t know anything about startups, so we used resources like MIT’s Deshpande Center, the Venture Mentoring Service, and MIT’s Technology Licensing Office in hope that there might be external interest in our technology. We quickly learned the regulatory hurdles presented too much risk at the early stages for potential partners, so we had to commercialize it ourselves.”

The founders received funding from the Deshpande Center to start developing the company. SanaHeal was officially formed in 2021.

Yuk and his collaborators initially focused on applying their technology to wounds to stop bleeding. But they soon shifted to focus on surgical applications, which are more numerous.

“It’s a major unmet need,” Yuk says. “We are giving surgeons more options for a host of complex procedures. They are really excited about this.”

Partnering for impact

SanaHeal provides its technology to larger medical device company partners, who are developing products for a wide range of applications including in open, laparoscopic, and endoscopic surgeries as well as in combination with existing devices for sutureless implantation in applications like hernia and nerve repairs.

“We have envisioned ourselves as a platform company from the beginning,” Yuk says. “We don’t have the resources to develop 10 products at once, so we partner with bigger companies to commercialize solutions.”

Yuk, who has been working on the technology for nearly a decade, admits the commercialization process has taken longer than he expected. But he believes the payoff — seeing a technology he first developed in a lab have an impact on patients — will make the journey worth it.

“My life goal as a researcher is to see the full lifecycle of a new technology, from the scientific discovery, to research, to understanding how it works, to engineering it, to working with subject matter experts, and finally developing a product that gets approved to help humans,” Yuk explains. “It’s rare, but it would be incredibly rewarding and would be a great story to tell to inspire my research colleagues.”

Nature Climate Change, Published online: 20 October 2026; doi:10.1038/s41558-026-02766-y

Clean hydrogen is a versatile decarbonization option, but given its energy-intensive production, high costs and limited near-term supply, uses with the greatest environmental and economic benefits must be prioritized. Analysis of ten end-use sectors identifies high-value applications and suggests that uniform supply-side subsidies risk misallocating clean hydrogen and public funds, highlighting the need for sector-specific demand-side policies.

Nature Climate Change, Published online: 20 October 2026; doi:10.1038/s41558-026-02767-x

Extreme southward swings of the South Indian convergence zone can lead to severe rainfall and flooding in southern Africa. Here the authors show that climate change leads to an increase in the frequency and intensity of such swings.

This post was co-written by Andi Cao, an EFF legal intern.

Automated license plate readers (ALPRs) are mass surveillance. They photograph every passing car and log where and when it was captured, building a searchable record of where nearly everyone drives. Cities should not buy them, and cities that already have them should shut them down.

Where these systems still operate, courts and state legislatures must reduce their harms by (among other things) requiring police to get a warrant before searching stored ALPR data. A warrant requirement would not make mass surveillance acceptable, but it would require police to justify a search to a judge before accessing records of people’s movements. Without this independent judicial check on police power, officers have been searching this data for improper reasons (many exposed by EFF) that violate our fundamental rights.

A warrant requires a judge to find probable cause and specificity—many warrantless police searches of ALPR data lack both. Officers have searched this data to profile Romani people, monitor protesters, investigate an abortion, find immigrants for deportation, track a man who complained about a deputy, stalk romantic partners, and even for no stated reason beyond “LMAO.” A warrant requirement would force law enforcement to justify these searches before accessing sensitive location records, not leave the people they target to discover and challenge the abuse after the harm is done.

What a Warrant Requires

Warrants are a check on police power. Before officers can search a person or their property, the Fourth Amendment requires them to convince a neutral judge, under oath, that probable cause exists, meaning a fair probability the search will turn up evidence of a crime. The warrant must also describe with particularity what will be searched, so police cannot go on a fishing expedition. Critically, the officer who wants to search is not the person who decides whether the search is justified.

That is why warrants are required for so many kinds of police surveillance. For example, police generally need a warrant to wiretap phone calls, to search the contents of a cell phone, and to obtain historical cell phone location records.

Stored ALPR data reveals sensitive information about the private details of our lives: where we go, when, and with whom. That’s why we believe police searches of stored ALPR data should also require a warrant. Earlier this month, a federal judge in Oklahoma agreed.

What Goes Wrong Without a Warrant: San Jose, California

San Jose demonstrates the harmful consequences of letting law enforcement search stored ALPR data without a warrant. EFF and the ACLU of Northern California represent SIREN and CAIR-California in a lawsuit challenging this practice.

The first problem is the sheer number of times that SJPD officers search stored ALPR data: 261,711 times between June 5, 2024, and June 17, 2025, about 692 searches a day. That scale is the result of having no warrant requirement, which would greatly reduce this kind of casual police surveillance.

Inevitably, officers abuse this unchecked power. In September, San Jose’s police chief disclosed an example from five months earlier: the department had fired an officer who used its ALPR system to track a woman who had accused his cousin of domestic violence, and then shared her location information with his cousin. The abusive search of stored ALPR data came to light only after the woman told police that her alleged assailant had implied he was tracking her.  A warrant requirement would have prevented this.

Of course, similar problems appear nationwide. For each example below, consider how things could have turned out differently if the officer had to put the reason for the search in a sworn warrant application and handed it to a judge.

Racial profiling of Romani people

More than 80 law enforcement agencies searched the Flock network using terms that unfairly stereotype Romani people, often without mentioning any crime. For example, the Grand Prairie (Texas) Police Department searched for “g*psy” six times using a Flock feature that identifies vehicles traveling together, in effect targeting a whole community without naming a crime.

No judge should sign that warrant. Ethnicity is not evidence of a crime, and a search aimed at an entire ethnic group is the opposite of particular: it targets people for who they are, not evidence that they committed a crime.

Surveillance of protesters

EFF found that more than 50 agencies ran hundreds of protest-related searches of ALPR data in 2025. For example, the Tempe (Arizona) Police Department ran three searches tied to the No Kings protest across 425 networks, with no identified crime.

This lacks probable cause and targets activity that is protected by the First Amendment.

Investigating an abortion

In 2025, a Texas sheriff’s office searched more than 83,000 Flock cameras, including cameras in Washington and Illinois, where abortion is legal, listing the reason as “had an abortion, search for female.” Records later obtained by EFF show deputies had opened a “death investigation” after the woman’s partner, who was later charged in connection with assaulting her, reported her self-managed abortion.

In a state where abortion is legal, a judge would not grant a warrant for a search like this.

Finding immigrants for deportation

San Francisco police let out-of-state agencies search the city’s ALPR data (which itself violates California law), and at least 19 of those searches were marked as related to ICE (though San Francisco is a sanctuary city). This problem is widespread. One investigation found more than 4,000 cases in which police departments around the country searched stored ALPR data on behalf of federal law enforcement, including for immigration investigations. Some agencies even connect their ALPR systems to an “Immigration Violator” hotlist populated by ICE, which includes plates tied to administrative warrants issued by ICE agents without any judge involved.

Here too, a judge in a state where police may not help enforce immigration law would not issue a warrant for these searches.

Retaliation against a critic

In May 2025, Navy veteran Napoleon Jones lawfully recorded a police traffic stop of another person in Sussex, Wisconsin. Jones alleges that a Waukesha County deputy retaliated by stopping and arresting him. He was released five hours later without citations or charges, and the deputy’s supervisor concluded the stop was illegal. Jones filed a complaint against the deputy the next day.

In the weeks that followed, officers reportedly ran more than 100 Flock searches against Jones, including some run by the deputy he had complained about. Deputies testified that a lieutenant ordered the searches in connection with Jones’s complaint.

No judge should authorize tracking a man for criticizing the police.

Stalking romantic partners

The Institute for Justice (IJ) has documented dozens of cases in which officers allegedly used ALPRs to track current, potential, and former romantic partners. For example, a Lufkin, Texas, officer was indicted on 100 felony counts after allegedly searching for his ex-girlfriend and people she knew more than 10,000 times. Likewise, a Milwaukee officer allegedly tracked a woman he was dating and her ex nearly 180 times over two months. IJ found that most of these cases surfaced only after victims reported the officer.

We hope that no officer would write “tracking the location of my ex-girlfriend” on a warrant application, and even if they did so, a judge would not authorize such a search.

Searches for “LMAO”

Sometimes officers do not even provide a real reason to search stored ALPR data. EFF found officers logging search reasons such as “LOL,” “LMAO,” “idk,” and random keyboard mashing. These entries are supposed to document why a search complies with an agency’s own use policies. A Goshen (Indiana) Police Department officer searched 6,474 networks, representing data from 82,413 cameras, with “idk” as the reason.

An officer who asked a judge for a warrant to track someone for “LMAO” would be laughed out of the courtroom.

The Solution

The best way to eliminate these abusive searches is to end ALPR mass surveillance. Where these systems remain, however, courts and state legislatures must require police to get a warrant before searching stored ALPR data. Warrants are the time-tested way to put an independent judicial check on police use of a dangerous surveillance technology. Officers must establish probable cause and specifically describe the proposed search before accessing the data, while existing exceptions for genuine emergencies still apply.

These protections must also cover real-time tracking. An ALPR “hotlist” is a list of license plates that trigger an alert when a camera spots a matching plate. Officers can stalk potential romantic partners by putting them on a hotlist, as a Florida deputy allegedly did with a woman he met on the set of a TV show. Thus, state legislators should require officers to get a warrant before putting a person on an ALPR hotlist (as well as a warrant to search stored ALPR data).

Related Cases: SIREN and CAIR-CA v. San Jose

From its beginning in 2015, the premise of MIT’s Aging Brain Initiative (ABI) has been that neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s are complex, “system-wide” breakdowns that will require advances of many kinds from many sources to address. The six talks at the ABI’s symposium “Innovations for the Aging Brain” on Sept. 25 illustrated what that’s come to mean at MIT, as scientists and engineers described their latest work to improve health for the aging brain.

“The ABI is unique because it brings together researchers from a diverse array of fields,” said ABI Director Li-Huei Tsai, Picower Professor in the the Picower Institute for Learning and Memory and Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences (BCS). “Today’s symposium showcases MIT’s collective brilliance across neuroscience, engineering, chemistry, and beyond.”

One of the talks, for instance, featured a team effort including Giovanni Traverso, the Karl Van Tassel (1925) Professor of Mechanical Engineering and a physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, who has joined forces with Tsai and other collaborators to develop an artificial intelligence system that could improve personalized Alzheimer’s care by matching patients to the best prevention interventions for them. The system integrates data from clinical trials, patient lifestyle histories, and multi-omics data (e.g., genomics, proteomics) to predict an individual’s Alzheimer’s progression and likely response to interventions. 

Speaking alongside project leads Arvid Gollwitzer, an engineer-scientist in the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, and MIT-Novo Nordisk AI Fellow Adrián Noriega de la Colina, Traverso described how the team engineered an AI model, called FINGERS-7B, to integrate these multiple highly diverse data sources into its training, thereby amassing 8 trillion “tokens” to inform its predictions.

“Every individual is very unique in their biology, and that links to how we respond to those interventions,” said Noriega. Not only could AI predictions help tailor individual prevention measures, he added, but also it could inform clinical trial designs by better pinpointing the most appropriate populations to target with a prospective drug or other treatment.

Picower Professor Earl K. Miller focused on prevention of a different problem for the aging brain: cognitive side effects from exposure to too much general anesthesia. Noting high rates of postoperative delirium in older adults after major surgery, Miller described his research with ABI founding member and Institute Professor Emery N. Brown, a Picower Institute and BCS colleague, to develop a closed-loop system that uses brain wave-based measurements of unconsciousness to optimize anesthesia dosing. Miller and Brown’s labs have shown that regardless of their molecular means of action, multiple anesthesia drugs induce unconsciousness in the same way: by shifting brainwaves out of phase with each other, disrupting the coordination of communication across the brain’s cortex that sustains cognition and consciousness. Informed by such brain wave “signatures” of unconsciousness, the system could help anesthesiologists to safely tailor dosing during surgery.

In her talk, associate professor of mechanical engineering Ritu Raman, the Eugene Bell Career Development Chair of Tissue Engineering, described how she’s approaching the study of neuromuscular diseases, including amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and muscular dytrophies, by developing advanced lab models of muscle tissue that also integrate nerves and vasculature. For instance, for ALS, her lab has been able to make the cultures from induced pluripotent stem cells derived from patients. The lab models give her team an opportunity to examine neuromuscular junctions in detail and to model how they change in response to potentially therapeutic drugs.

In many neurodegenerative diseases associated with aging, such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, a major pathology is misfolding and aggregation of intrinsically disordered proteins, such as amyloid-beta or alpha-synuclein. In her talk, William R (1964) and Daniel L. (1995) Young Career Development Assistant Professor of Chemistry Oleta Johnson described her lab’s work to prevent aggregation before it starts. In pursuit of that strategy, she said her lab’s research is focused on developing the chemical knowledge and means to identify proteins at issue, detect that they are moving into a problematic state, and then control their conformation.

Eugene McDermott Professor in the Brain Sciences and Human Behavior Alan Jasanoff, a member of the BCS and Biological Engineering departments as well as the McGovern Institute for Brain Research, described a very different application of chemistry to aging brain research. He described how his lab develops novel chemical probes to make molecules in the brain visible in magnetic resonance imaging. These include the neuromodulatory enzyme cholinesterase, which is the target of many of the few drugs approved to treat Alzheimer’s, and also lipids, which several brain cell types mishandle in Alzheimer’s, Tsai and others have shown. His lab has also developed technology to genetically encode a novel probe in brain cells to improve MRI visualization of brain activity.

And while many researchers focus on the prominent problems that proteins or lipids present in neurodegenerative disease, Novartis Professor of Chemistry Laura Kiessling discussed a less-appreciated but still important component of cellular function: sugars called glycans that line the surface of cells. In particular, researchers have linked a glycan called heparan sulfate to Alzheimer’s disease. Kiessling’s lab, working with ABI founding member Ed Boyden, Y. Eva Tan Professor of Neurotechnology, is working to characterize and understand glycans. Her lab, for instance, has shown that glycans of different sequences organize on cell membranes so that they can bind and recruit specific proteins to distinct regions on cells.

“We are really excited about the fact that we’ve observed this now for the first time and have a toolkit to study other diseases,” she said. Understanding glycan binding could even give scientists a means to target different cells and cellular processes.

Following the six talks, more than a dozen trainees at a poster session presented even more aging brain-related projects from around the Institute, further highlighting MIT’s diversity of research in the area, something the ABI exists to encourage.

From massive AI datasets to the sugars on individual cells, the symposium highlighted how MIT scientists are pushing the frontiers of science and engineering to improve understanding of, and interventions for, the health of the aging brain.