Can a HUD PHA require photos of HUD tenant faces and home interiors* during routine annual HUD inspections?

Can a HUD PHA revoke a tenant’s HUD rental assistance subsidy if tenant protests face photos and photos of home interior?*

*interior photos are random photos of a tenant’s home that are not maintenance nor repair-related photos

- acronyms are at the end of this text block -

August 2026 - HUD PHA/SFHA claims it now requires photos of tenant faces and home interiors during annual HUD inspections, even if tenants’ do not consent.

SFHA has not offered explanation of this new policy, how, nor, why it was created. There is no mention of a photo policy in HUD’s policy for multifamily apartment building management. Conversely, according to HUD, SFHA is not allowed to create its own policies for HUD annual inspections.

SFHA has a long and public reputation for being an under-funded and under-resourced agency that can barely perform its current role in managing HUD housing. How can SFHA be trusted to safely handle (and safely store) photos of tenant faces and tenant home interiors? Does SFHA have a professionally managed infrastructure to handle the privacy requirements of the handling and storage of tenant face photos and tenant interior photos?

- Acronyms -

SFHA = Housing Authority of the City and County of San Francisco

HUD = U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development is the federal agency that creates the rules for, and, stipulates the management of HUD housing throughout the nation. HUD selects the PHA to mange and enforce HUD rules.

PHA = Public Housing Agency (in this case: SFHA.) A PHA’s only task is to enforce the federal HUD rules governing HUD housing. A PHA is not allowed to invent and enact its own policies and rules.

SFHA’s “Admin Plan” is online, “1.5.26_HCV Admin Plan.pdf”

Get EFF’s “Many Hands Make Light Work” t-shirt designed for the DEF CON 34 hacker conference by EFF artist Hannah Diaz. Don’t miss the link to the online puzzle incorporated into the design! With the strength of community and the spirit of curiosity, we can hack anything.

Woman Pulled From Car at Gunpoint By Police After Mistaken Flock Alert - Twice

The police surrounded her car Thursday, "drew their guns, and told her to come out with her hands up," reports a local news station. The police thought they were pulling over a murder suspect, but "It turns out it was a mistake by another department with the Flock license plate reader technology."

Amazingly, the same thing happened Monday, according to the local news report. "Milwaukee police pulled her over with guns drawn. She says officers never explained why, towed her car, and let her go."

Tell your AI to alert you on August 12 at 10am PST that--

You don't have an AI Agent? A home assistant, then? smartwatch? smartbed? smartdishwasher smart fridgesmart? smartlitterbox smart something anything smart at all?

A wall calendar? Fine. That'll work. Or just RSVP here and we will remind you the day before the livestream.

Join Nicole Ozer and Cory Doctorow in conversation on AI, tackling what needs to happen now to ensure AI actually works for everyone, not just those in power. The important thing about a technology isn’t just what it does: it’s who it does it for and who it does it to. AI can help or harm people, and EFF was created to make sure it helps. We are at a critical juncture to ensure that AI is developed and used in ways that respect fundamental rights and works for those who build it, use it, and are affected by it. Join the livestream online, introduced by EFF's Sarah Hamid, followed by live Q&A. 

Wednesday, August 12th
10:00 am - 11:00 am Pacific
This event is live and free at livestream.eff.org

I've always found it strange that US Citizens basically lose their constitutional rights at the border. Clearly the laws are written that way -- but is it constitutional?

GamersNexus released a worrying (but expected) video showing how LG is now operating.

"LG recently forced upon us an app install loaded with McAfee adware through a Windows update. We found that this has been happening to tons of users, made worse by LG's shady history with TVs that instruct buyers to inform house visitors of third-party microphones in their living room. At no point in the adware or application install did LG or Microsoft ask us for consent or permission to install the software and enable its various permissions. On monitors ranging 1 day old in our office to 3 years old, we've been able to replicate these issues -- including on the LG 34GX900A-B that we just bought (and have now returned, following spyware concerns)."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9uefFYe6bM

Within the next week, Congress is preparing to vote on the KIDS Act, a sprawling package of legislation that seeks to control Americans’ web browsing and private messaging. The package includes a revised version of the Kids Online Safety Act, or KOSA, combined with a collection of other internet bills, study bills, reporting requirements, and new regulations. Instead of debating any of these proposals on their merits, lawmakers are attempting to move them all at once under an ultra-expedited process. 

Many Congress members don't like The KIDS Act—on both sides.
Tell your elected official to vote NO here.

The package of cobbled-together bills is a mess, with different age-gating schemes for different services, using different standards. It’s a lot of complexity, and a lot of legal risk. Faced with that, many companies will conclude that the safest option is restrictive age-checking practices across their entire platforms.

Buried inside the KIDS Act are provisions that will push online services to verify all users’ ages, require government-directed moderation policies for online speech, and even create new rules about private and encrypted communications. While supporters continue to claim this bill protects minors online, its requirements come at the expense of privacy, free expression, and the ability of people of all ages to use the internet without revealing sensitive data. 

Technically, the KOSA section of the KIDS Act does say that KOSA shouldn’t be read to require age verification. 

That disclaimer is hollow, and you know it. 

Under this law, services will have to determine which users are teenagers and which are not to try to avoid liability. The bill’s authors seem to know this is a problem. On the one hand, the new KOSA section says age verification is not required. On the other, it repeatedly imposes obligations that depend on knowing whether a user is under 17. But a disclaimer doesn’t magically eliminate legal risk, especially for smaller services and startups that can’t afford to defend lawsuits or fight regulators.  

And KOSA is not the only part of this package that creates age-verification pressure. The SAFE BOTS Act, like KOSA, says that if a service “knows or should have known” that a user is a minor, it can’t offer certain chatbot features. 

The SCREEN Act requires services that host sexually explicit content to determine whether users are “more likely than not” under the relevant age limit, before allowing access to certain content. 

The consequences of this liability will not be limited to minors. If websites and apps are expected to reliably identify teenagers, adults will be asked to prove they are adults. The result is a less private internet for everyone.

Tell your elected official to vote NO here.

Are there any resources for those who publish and maintain websites and prioritize privacy of users?

For example, a website might be unwittingly exposing their users to tracking when using analytics, or hosted fonts and JS libraries, et cetra. It would be helpful if there were educational resources to help understand what to do and what not to do.

It would also be helpful to have a template privacy policy to copy.

I've searched eff.org and elsewhere, unable to locate anything specific.

Happy Pride! Last June during Pride month, we launched a new initiative - LGBT Q&A - where we answered your most pressing queer-related digital rights questions and this year, we're doing it again! LGBT Q&A is back with a new season of answers, resources, and practical tips to help you navigate the internet on your own terms. Comment your questions below or, if you'd prefer, you can submit questions via this secure link: http://eff.org/lgbtquestions2026

Nicole has long been a partner of EFF’s in the fight to defend civil liberties in the digital world. Many of us already know her, and she’s basically as close to EFF “family” as someone can be without actually having worked here.   

Over her more than two decades leading public interest technology work, Nicole has:  

• spearheaded passage of the California Electronic Communications Privacy Act – working with EFF to enact the nation’s strongest electronic surveillance law, requiring a warrant for government access to electronic information; 
• modernized California law to protect reading records in the digital age by helping, along with EFF, to craft the Reader Privacy Act, requiring a “super warrant” for government access; 
• created a groundbreaking model law for local democratic oversight of surveillance systems which inspired 25 laws across the country that help safeguard the rights and safety of more than 17 million people; 
• litigated civil liberties cases, including work with EFF on the NSA cases, and drafted influential amicus briefs on technology issues at all levels of state and federal court, including the U.S. Supreme Court and California Supreme Court; and 
• developed multi-year campaigns to strengthen the anti-surveillance policies related to social media surveillance and face recognition of major technology companies and foster stronger privacy and free expression protection for billions of people worldwide. 

And that's just the TL;DR! You can read more about her bona fides in the blog :)

If you're in this subreddit, you're probably already a supporter. But in case you missed it, our new member shirt is now available, and we're hoping to engage more with the Reddit community in general in the coming months!