CDT's 2025 Annual Report

Friends,

As we put the finishing touches on this report, the U.S. is engaged in a series of profound public conversations that will shape our democracy for years to come — and the issues that CDT works on are at the very center of the fight.

What guardrails should protect Americans from government surveillance? Can law enforcement repurpose sensitive data collected for public services to conduct sweeping immigration enforcement, or to undermine the right to vote? How is AI transforming people’s daily lives and the ways we learn about the world? And how do we protect our privacy, free speech, civil rights and democratic discourse in the uncertain years ahead?

In each of these fights — and more — I’m proud that CDT is playing a central role, not just pushing to protect people’s rights and democratic freedoms, but providing smart, technologically sophisticated resources that move beyond partisan talking points to actionable solutions.

In the U.S. and Europe, CDT team members are engaging directly with policymakers, civil society partners, and industry to advance concrete protections while supporting tech advancements that can strengthen communities and improve people’s lives. Our staff continues to grow, providing sectoral expertise on topics ranging from elections, to surveillance, consumer privacy, online speech, civic technology and more – while leveraging cross-cutting infrastructure like our AI Governance Lab, Research Team, and State Engagement Team.

Across sectors, CDT is proud to serve as a trusted convener to move forward the most pressing tech policy questions of our day. That doesn’t just happen: it’s the result of the ongoing, outcome-focused work highlighted in this report. Whether we’re producing unique research on the use of AI in schools, filing briefs in the Supreme Court, or fighting for the privacy and security of Americans’ data amidst escalating federal attacks, our teams are rising to the moment with honesty, integrity, and deep expertise.

I’m proud that CDT has spoken out loudly and clearly against bad policy, reckless uses of technology, and efforts to advance censorship and discrimination. Even on the most fiercely contested issues, we’ve shown that our concerns are too deeply grounded and evidence-based to be dismissed.

In 2026, we face critical elections in the U.S. and around the world, and we continue to see astonishing technological advances that require fresh thinking to ensure people’s rights are protected. None of us know precisely which questions we’ll face tomorrow, next week, or next year. But I’m confident that CDT’s unique blend of expertise, principle, and across-the-spectrum collaboration will be a critical part of getting to the right answers.

I’m grateful for the support of all the people who have made the activities in this report possible — from donors to allies, to thought partners, Board Members, advisors, fellows and our wonderful staff.

CDT’s mission has never been more important, and our organization has never been stronger. I look forward to the important work ahead.

Sincerely,

Alexandra Reeve Givens
CDT President & CEO

In 2025’s first months, the new Trump Administration made rapid, dramatic changes to the federal government, freezing budgets, firing watchdogs and independent agency commissioners, and upending decades of established programs. With technology at the heart of many of these actions, CDT quickly became a resource for allies and media, emphasizing the range of harms to individual privacy, government oversight, civil rights protections, election security, and free speech.

Countering DOGE’s Data Grab

As DOGE took center stage, CDT played a leading role explaining the unprecedented steps the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) was taking to access and consolidate people’s sensitive personal data held by agencies across government. We produced resources and events that helped journalists, Hill staffers, government administrators, and the public understand possible harms stemming from DOGE’s actions, including identity theft, misuse of data for law enforcement purposes, and disrupted access to government benefits and services. In partnership with The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights and Protect Democracy, we exposed the privacy and cybersecurity risks arising from DOGE’s pattern of ignoring relevant laws and best practices for protecting personal information.

In the courts, CDT collaborated with litigation teams in numerous DOGE-related lawsuits involving privacy violations. We also drove bipartisan discussions, advising members of Congress looking to strengthen the Privacy Act of 1974, and joining with AEI to host a high-profile conversation that surfaced grave concerns with federal data consolidation. At the AEI event, as a former IRS Commissioner and former Secretary of State cautioned about the long-term effects of DOGE’s overreach on Americans’ trust in government, we also pressed Palantir’s representative for details on the company’s role in consolidating access to previously protected data.

When the IRS announced that it would share taxpayer data with ICE in violation of longstanding laws and practices, we immediately raised the alarm — urging Congress to conduct oversight hearings, demanding release of the agreement, and pushing the Treasury Department to explain its reckless new interpretation of the law. In another instance, CDT joined with Protect Democracy and the Electronic Privacy Information Center to remind the private companies that process SNAP benefits of their obligation to resist unlawful requests for their customers’ private data, leading the United States Department of Agriculture to withdraw its demand.

As state governments began spinning up their own government efficiency initiatives, we urged policymakers to learn from DOGE’s mistakes. Most notably, we underscored that efforts to address “fraud, waste, and abuse” require targeted, context-specific application rather than DOGE’s blunt-force approach.

Defending Independent Agencies

CDT also responded to efforts by the Trump Administration to gut independent agencies and government watchdogs. When the President fired Democratic members of the the bipartisan Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, an independent agency charged with preventing surveillance abuses, CDT led the civil society response, highlighting the implications for civil liberties, oversight, and the U.S.-EU Data Privacy Framework that underpins transatlantic data flows.

We also pushed back on unprecedented attacks on other independent agencies, including the firing of Democratic commissioners at the Federal Trade Commission, Federal Elections Commission, and Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and the gutting of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. We underscored the essential function and structure of these agencies, and joined 40 civil society organizations in challenging the firing of FTC Commissioner Rebecca Slaughter. “The FTC is an independent agency for a reason,” our CEO told press on the day of Slaughter’s firing. “These political firings fly in the face of the Commission’s bipartisan history and nearly 100 years of Supreme Court precedent. And it’s consumers who will pay the price.”

Taking a Stand for the First Amendment

In its efforts to reshape the federal government, the Administration cut important programs for free expression and took extraordinary actions to censor and chill speech that it disliked. CDT joined with civil society partners in defending the U.S. Agency for Global Media, emphasizing the agency’s critical role in the dissemination of news and preservation of democracy worldwide, and spoke out for the important public news services provided by PBS and NPR. When the Federal Communications Commission reinstated frivolous complaints against U.S. broadcasters ABC, CBS, and NBC for their coverage of the 2024 election, we called on the agency to end its unconstitutional jawboning and reverse its increasingly politicized agenda — which included an outrageous and ultimately unsuccessful effort to cause the firing of TV host Jimmy Kimmel later in the year.

Meanwhile, CDT helped journalists, lawmakers, and advocates connect the dots as the Administration increasingly used its immigration powers to punish and chill constitutionally protected speech. When the Administration targeted people for deportation or denied visa entry based on their peaceful protest activities, academic research, and even news reporting, it caught global attention. CDT highlighted the risks of the government’s use of social media monitoring to support these policies, and its demand that non-citizens set their social media accounts to “public” and provide their social media handles to help support this viewpoint-based targeting.

In 2026, the federal government remains focused on using data and technology to target people and organizations whose policies and speech it disagrees with — including by using new tactics to unmask anonymous online accounts associated with protest activity. As these efforts continue, we’ll keep fighting to make sure people’s rights are protected and that communities across the U.S. understand what’s at stake.

At CDT, AI governance and policy has long been a priority in our work ensuring that technologies support people’s most essential rights. As AI tools have become more powerful and ubiquitous, we’re deeply invested in tackling AI from all angles — engaging with leading AI labs, educating lawmakers and regulators, and helping state and local governments adopt AI systems safely and effectively.

The earlier important protections for people are baked into AI systems, the better, and that’s why our AI Governance Lab team is working closely with engineers and policy leads at companies building frontier models, focusing on research and recommendations targeted at the needs of those on the front lines. This year, we pushed for safer and more responsible AI systems, releasing resources aimed at improving audits and evaluations, limiting sycophancy of AI chatbots to protect users’ mental health, and explaining the important steps AI developers can take to mitigate harmful behavior. CDT is producing the kind of practical, impactful materials that labs need to develop next-generation systems with democratic values embedded at the deepest level.

In one core body of work, our AI Governance Lab dove deep on the risks and opportunities of AI agents and AI memory — two issues with wide-ranging implications for people’s privacy and control. CDT convened experts to discuss the implications of adding memory features and capabilities to advanced AI systems, emphasizing the need to learn from long-running conversations about privacy and personalization — and the obligation to wrestle with AI’s unique risks and opportunities. We emphasized how ad-based revenue models can create risky incentives for companies, prompting them to collect more data and track their users’ conduct with lasting effects for user privacy. As we worked to help policymakers and advocates understand the stakes, we also published accessible analyses of the policy and technical implications of action-taking AI agents, which pursue goals by making decisions and interacting with digital environments or tools — often with limited human oversight.

In addition to supporting the development of well-designed, rights-protecting technology, CDT is helping ensure that institutions are equipped to reckon with AI in ways that strengthen our democracy and our rights.

In one key area, CDT’s Civic Technology team is helping state and local governments deploy AI safely and effectively. This year, that meant releasing a suite of guides designed specifically for public servants seeking to adopt AI in the public sector. One report, “To AI or Not to AI,” offered practical guidance helping officials identify which responsibilities are well suited for AI tools — and which aren’t. A second report, “Rethinking the Loop,” laid out actionable recommendations to ensure that humans can maintain critical oversight of AI systems. In other resources, we delivered straightforward guidance on auditing AI systems, developing inventories of AI uses, and allocating responsibility across government departments. In each case, CDT supplied the tools that public officials have told us they need to incorporate this technology in important public programs.

We also paid particular attention to the impact of AI in schools. Once again, CDT produced original, nationally representative polling research to understand how teachers, parents, and students are experiencing technology in the classroom. Our results gained national attention, with coverage in every major news outlet – from the AP to The Onion. We found that AI use is affecting students’ relationships with their parents, teachers, and peers, and documented students’ increasing reliance on AI for mental health support and companionship. Learning from these findings, we took action to produce resources where they’re needed most, working with educators to develop a guide for how schools can tackle non-consensual intimate imagery on campus, and with school officials and technical experts to develop a rubric for assessing the transparency of AI-enabled edtech tools.

The landscape for AI development and use is rapidly changing, and Congress has so far failed to meaningfully address it despite calls for guidance from across sectors. That’s why states are playing an important role in protecting their citizens from the potential harms of AI — and why we’ve aggressively and successfully fought federal efforts to prevent state legislators from taking common-sense steps to keep their constituents safe from discrimination and other AI harms. We’ve also worked hard to help support these state-level policymakers in developing laws that support a robust, competitive, and rights-respecting ecosystem. In 2025, CDT’s new State Engagement team provided technical
assistance to policymakers across the country, testifying and sharing our evidence-based research to help inform the debate.

At CDT, we understand the transformative impact that AI can have on all our lives — as citizens, students, workers, and humans. We’re firing on all cylinders to ensure that we’re bringing the same values that have animated us for the last 30 years to the emerging technologies that will shape our world for decades to come.

As landmark EU digital legislation has moved decisively from adoption to implementation, CDT Europe has continued to raise its profile as a trusted civil society coordinator and expert voice for human rights.

In 2025, we were proud to provide guidance on and help shape legislation, advocating for human rights-centered enforcement of the Digital Services Act (DSA) and AI Act — which respectively regulate online environments and AI systems — and bringing our voice to critical debates on surveillance and spyware.

As regulators began to determine how they would implement the DSA, CDT Europe strengthened its position as a key influencer and coordinator for civil society input, focusing on ensuring that the law’s safeguards for fundamental rights are realized in practice. With that goal in mind, we convened our DSA Civil Society Coordination Group, through which we led the first comprehensive civil society analysis of how to improve required assessments of “very large” online platforms and search engines’ systemic risks. Our work provided the most detailed and concrete set of recommendations to date, pushing for more thorough and effective assessments and informing the DSA’s landmark effort to create a safer and more transparent online environment.

We also deepened our relationships with entities that help the DSA empower users and keep them safe online, including Digital Services Coordinators charged with enforcing the law, “trusted flaggers” of potentially illegal online content, and out-of-court bodies for settling disputes. Our annual DSA Civil Society Event brought together 120 institutional representatives and experts from civil society and academia, expanding into a full-day program of in-depth conversations on lessons learned and the future of the DSA’s enforcement.

In 2025, CDT Europe formally launched a new body of work to combat technology-facilitated gender-based violence, building on several years of advocacy to bring an intersectional, gendered lens to EU tech policy. As part of this work, we named clear priorities for EU action, from addressing gendered disinformation and strengthening mechanisms for non-criminal redress, to ensuring that encryption and privacy protections are not undermined in the name of online safety. We also produced research showing how many very large platforms still fall short in identifying and addressing gender-based harms, and offered practical recommendations for how they might do better.

Alongside the DSA, 2025 marked a pivotal year for implementation of the EU’s AI Act. As a fundamental rights organization with strong technical expertise, CDT Europe played a leading role during the development of the Code of Practice and related guidance — critical tools that shape the legislation’s effects on ordinary Europeans, and help AI developers meet its requirements. Throughout the year, we published in-depth analyses of core implementation topics like prohibited practices and the role of assessments of impacts to fundamental rights. These resources helped civil society organizations, journalists, and researchers across Europe engage critically with the Act and identify areas where poor implementation could undermine rights protections.

Beyond formal consultations, CDT Europe hosted and contributed to civil society convenings focused on anticipated developments in AI Act implementation. These spaces enabled organizations working on digital rights, non-discrimination, consumer protection, and labor rights to coordinate strategies and collectively assess emerging risks. As a result, CDT Europe helped broaden engagement with AI governance beyond specialist circles, fostering stronger connections between
technical, legal, and human rights communities.

CDT Europe also advanced EU-level debates on spyware, surveillance, and the proposed Child Sexual Abuse Regulation. We published our first research report examining how EU export controls are failing to prevent the spread and misuse of commercial spyware, drawing on interviews with authorities across Member States and detailed analysis of the only binding EU framework governing spyware exports. The report exposed persistent gaps in oversight, showing how fragmented national approaches continue to allow highly intrusive surveillance tools to proliferate with serious consequences for journalists, activists, and civil society.

We continued to advocate for proportionate, evidence-based child protection measures that respect privacy, security, free expression, and fundamental rights. In the important conversation on the Child Sexual Abuse regulation, our analysis and public feedback helped demonstrate that blanket content scanning is neither rights-respecting nor effective, contributing to the Council’s removal of obligations that would have enabled indiscriminate monitoring of private communications.

This year, CDT Europe also stepped up engagement in response to growing calls to weaken or roll back hard-won EU digital safeguards. As part of broader civil society efforts against a widening deregulation agenda, we actively contributed to debates around the changes in the proposed “digital omnibus,” highlighting the risks of reopening or diluting key protections. Working alongside a wide range of civil society organizations, we helped articulate a shared vision that defends fundamental rights, accountability, and democratic oversight as core pillars of Europe’s digital framework. This collective advocacy underscored that effective implementation — not deregulation — is essential to ensuring that EU tech laws deliver tangible protections for people and communities.

As we head into a critical election year, the importance of a secure, accessible, and trustworthy election ecosystem has never been greater.

That’s why CDT is blending rigorous research, direct engagement, and strategic advocacy to tackle emerging challenges across American elections — which include dramatic cuts to federal support for election security, the rapid emergence of generative AI, and politicized efforts to undermine trust in election outcomes.

From the first days of the new administration, CDT raised the alarm about federal government actions that would weaken U.S. national security, election officials’ safety, and voter privacy. In the wake of cuts to the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), which dismissed key cybersecurity staff and deprioritized crucial assistance that helps local election officials stay on top of threats, we repeatedly pushed Congress and the agency for basic transparency about which CISA programs would continue in the run-up to the 2026 midterms.

CDT also challenged federal demands for sensitive state voter data, as well as efforts to centralize verification of voters and citizenship. We collaborated with The Leadership Conference on Civil & Human Rights and Protect Democracy to monitor fast-moving developments and speak out about the effort’s potential harms and lasting impacts, serving as an authoritative source for media and allies alike. Later in the year, we urged DHS and the Social Security Administration to withdraw changes to the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) program, a system built for immigration-related benefits determinations that the Administration sought to repurpose into an error-prone voter-verification tool. The move risks disenfranchising eligible voters, and significantly threatens the privacy and civil rights of millions.

As the federal government’s approach to elections shifted, so did the political environment surrounding use of AI in elections, and CDT prepared for the technology to pose greater threats to elections in 2026 than in 2024. We supported state lawmakers working to address the issue, advocating for durable, speech-protective safeguards that help voters access authoritative information they can trust.

To better understand AI’s potential impact on elections, we produced original research examining how political campaigns used AI during the 2024 cycle. We found that larger campaigns adopted it more than smaller campaigns, which faced resource and capacity barriers — undercutting initial hopes that generative AI would level the playing field. More importantly, we found that campaigns were mostly restrained in their use of AI by fear of voter and media backlash around synthetic media, rather than by largely voluntary guardrails against misuse. Our research indicated that norms against campaigns relying on AI are rapidly shifting, underpinning our efforts to push governments and companies towards clearer standards for appropriate uses, deterrence measures to counter misleading claims and content, and accountability for harms.

Other CDT research looked at how civil society organizations innovatively contributed to a strong information environment during 2024’s “first AI elections.” We emphasized the importance of collaboration among civil society, strong company policies that contribute to information resilience, and improved information access for researchers to drive informed policymaking.

Beyond AI, CDT shone a spotlight on another trend in the information environment around elections: the growing importance of political influencers. These figures have become trusted voices during election cycles, as well as potential vectors for illicit foreign influence and dark money that can erode faith in democratic processes. We documented how existing legal and policy frameworks fall short in addressing the problems political influencers present for platforms and election governance, identifying ways that federal and state governments, social media platforms, political groups, third-party companies, and content creators can help make this unique group a rights- and democracy-respecting part of contemporary politics.

Our research had real-world impact, contributing to global understanding of emerging technology’s impacts on democratic processes. We were gratified to see the UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Opinion and Expression cite several critical insights from our research in a June report, which underscored the importance of continued commitments to research and advocacy around platform governance, AI transparency, and election integrity monitoring.

Throughout 2025, we continued work to ensure equal access to the ballot for every American, including voters with disabilities, launching a project to audit the accessibility of election websites across the country that will continue into 2026.

In the coming year, we’re responding to the federal retreat on election cybersecurity by rolling out a new nonpartisan initiative to help election administrators defend voting infrastructure against cyber threats. The initiative will draw upon partnerships across cybersecurity, national security, election administration, and more, supporting timely, actionable research and analysis on how to make election processes more secure and resilient.

By strengthening electoral infrastructure from the ground up, and building resilience to emerging technological threats, we are working to ensure that our elections remain secure, accessible, informed, and worthy of public trust.

Launched in 2023, CDT’s AI Governance Lab is a leading public interest voice on the responsible construction, use, and governance of AI systems — issues central to protecting democracy as AI systems become increasingly integrated into our daily lives.

From big questions like how AI chatbots should protect users’ privacy, to how to advance the field of AI testing and assurance, the Lab provides actionable solutions to protect people’s’ rights while supporting innovation. We’re working directly with the frontier labs, advocating for responsible policies and product designs. We’re also working with deployers of AI systems — helping companies, public sector agencies, schools, and other entities be informed, responsible purchasers and users of this technology. The Lab also works closely with CDT’s various policy teams and other civil society allies, adding depth and specificity to our advocacy involving AI’s impact on government surveillance, elections, education, people’s access to information, and much more.

In 2025, we dove into the technical and policy questions raised by AI agents, helping companies, policymakers, and civil society partners understand agents’ evolving capabilities and the issues at stake. As AI companies rolled out personalized AI systems that remember their users’ queries and integrate with users’ digital accounts and files, we emphasized the urgent work needed to develop governance safeguards and put users in control.

We also advocated for more visibility into AI safety training, and led our own efforts on ways models can try to keep people safe. This included work on deceptive design patterns in AI chatbots, and the dangers of sycophantic chatbot behavior. We also took on the thorny question of contextual content harms, where a model’s behavior on a given topic may be harmful to some users but not all. Our Stakeholder-Informed Taxonomy of GenAI Risks for Eating Disorders won an honorable mention for best paper at CHI, the leading conference in the field of human-computer interaction.

Seeking to help decision-makers who must decide when and how to use an AI system, we published “Principled Practice: A Playbook for Operationalizing Responsible AI.” The report drew on workshops and interviews with over 30 responsible AI practitioners to capture best practices, lessons learned, and where further resources are required. As many people look to AI auditing and third-party evaluations as ways to improve trust, we explained the landscape for AI assurance — and the important work still ahead to build and formalize the field.

By digging deep on AI model specifications, systems documentation, and evaluation processes, CDT is pushing forward the conversation between companies, regulators, technologists, and civil society to help find solutions that work for all of us.

Bringing our deep expertise on technology and policy to the judicial arena, in 2025 CDT advanced the protection of online privacy, free expression, and access to digital services through targeted amicus briefs in state and federal courts. Working alongside civil society partners like the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the American Civil Liberties Union, and the Freedom to Read Foundation, CDT helped ensure that courts understand both the technological realities and the real-world impacts of their decisions on internet users.

A major theme in 2025 was defending minors’ access to social media and ensuring kids safety laws do not jeopardize all internet users’ privacy. In NetChoice v. Fitch and NetChoice v. Yost, CDT and our allies argued against state laws in Mississippi and Ohio that would impose sweeping requirements for age verification and parental consent. These laws, we explained, risked blocking access to constitutionally-protected speech, chilling online dialogue, and raising the likelihood of devastating data breaches for minors and adults alike.

In defense of privacy protections in the DC Circuit cases T-Mobile v. FCC and Verizon v. FCC, CDT moved to prevent telecommunications companies from collecting and selling sensitive data, such as geolocation information, without consent. We emphasized the importance of enforcing longstanding laws like the Stored Communications Act in Snap v. Pina in the California Supreme Court. And in Patterson v. Meta in the New York Supreme Court, we highlighted how Section 230 protections are essential for platforms to host the vast amount of various kinds of speech that makes the internet valuable to users without fear of undue liability.

CDT also addressed broader digital rights issues, including liability for contributory copyright infringement in Supreme Court case Cox v. Sony (represented by Lex Lumina), showing how overly expansive legal standards could restrict access to essential services like broadband internet.

Thanks to pro bono support from Keker, Van Nest & Peters LLP, Lex Lumina, and Chelus, Herdzik, Speyer & Monte, CDT was able to punch above its weight. Across all our legal work, we’re consistently highlighting the practical implications for users and the importance of balancing privacy, free expression, and access in a digital world.

In 2025, CDT continued to expand its policy work in the states, hiring a Director for State Engagement to lead a team connecting state policymakers with CDT’s expert insights.

Working with national and state-level civil society organizations representing consumers, workers, older Americans, and more, we helped inform legislative processes in multiple states, where important protections are gaining traction in the absence of federal action.

In Colorado, CDT played a major role in one of the most important AI laws on the books, which seeks to improve transparency and mitigate risks when AI is used in consequential decisions that impact people’s rights (such as in lending, employment, housing, and essential government services). We served on the state’s expert task force to review the law, and worked to ensure it would be implemented effectively without watering down key protections for workers and consumers. In California, we successfully advocated for public interest considerations as the California Privacy Protection Agency drafted safeguards for automated decision-making technologies, and helped inform bills addressing the use of automated decision systems in the workplace, surveillance pricing, and the use of algorithms to circumvent antitrust law.

On privacy, we helped advance important protections in New York, Massachusetts, and Maine — and played a key role in victories in Connecticut, where lawmakers substantially improved the Connecticut Data Privacy Act, and California, where the Opt Me Out Act will help users opt out of unwanted data collection through a signal embedded in their browser.

In states as varied as Mississippi, Ohio, New York, Florida, Connecticut, and California, we weighed in with lawmakers — and the courts — to ensure that laws impacting online speech do not improperly burden free expression rights. We also issued guidance, like an in-depth brief assessing how policymakers can seek transparency from tech companies without running afoul of the First Amendment.

In Louisiana, our Security and Surveillance team helped New Orleans City Council members push back against legislation that would have retroactively permitted profoundly invasive facial recognition technology. The team also helped companies and advocates understand the impact of state shield laws that seek to protect people’s private health data from interstate subpoenas.

State policy battles are only getting more important. From advising on specific efforts to speaking in fora like the National Council of State Legislatures, CDT will continue to deepen and expand our coalitions and broaden our engagement across the policy issues central to our mission.

CDT continues to play a unique role as a convener in the tech policy space, bringing together policymakers, researchers, civil society organizations, and industry leaders to tackle tough topics related to technology, free expression, and digital rights — like the spread of non-consensual intimate imagery, and the complex liability issues raised by general-purpose AI. Through high-profile events and webinars, and venues for candid conversations, we created spaces for dialogue around the thorniest problems in digital policy.

At our conference The Future of Speech Online 2025, we gathered academics, civil society representatives, and First Amendment litigators to look at how government pressure can shape private speech, and the resulting problems for freedom of expression.

In our workshop Advocating with Evidence: Lessons for Tech Researchers in Civil Society, we helped researchers and policymakers collaborate on how to more effectively get fresh, important data into the policy debate.

Throughout the year, CDT hosted other dialogues focused on trust and safety in online gaming, equitable content moderation for low-resource and indigenous languages in the Global South, human oversight of AI in public benefits administration, new threats to encryption, DOGE and government data privacy, and more. With partners as varied as AEI, The Leadership Conference on Civil & Human Rights, Stand Together Trust, Protect Democracy and UnidosUS, we found new ways to share ideas and build common ground.

By uniting diverse perspectives — from government and academia to tech companies and civil society organizations — we help advance the best possible policies to empower rather than endanger individual rights, strengthen democratic participation, and foster a more inclusive digital ecosystem.

When it comes to AI, educators continue to find themselves on the front lines: K-12 schools are one of the highest-stakes environments for safe, appropriate AI use. Amid rapid AI adoption, CDT is working to protect students while ensuring they reap AI’s benefits.

In October, we released our sixth annual in-depth survey of students, teachers, and parents to shed light on how technology is showing up in K-12 schools and provide clear data about the emerging risks to students. The research was cited by virtually every major media outlet from CNN to Fox, the AP to The Onion.

We issued in-depth analysis of state laws shaping AI rollout in schools, which led to improved understanding among policymakers and the public of strengths and gaps in enacting safeguards around AI use in the classroom. We also focused on practical guidance, publishing best practices for how to use AI while protecting students from discrimination, and what teachers need to know when using AI to help disabled students.

To help schools address the rapidly evolving threat of non-consensual intimate images — both authentic and AI-generated — we convened a task force with the American Federation of Teachers, Association of Title IX Administrators and other experts, producing a model policy for educators and tips for victim support.

Finally, we ramped up focus on EdTech vendors, urging companies to improve and standardize their disclosures about products that include AI to help educators make informed decisions. CDT published an eight-point transparency rubric and evaluated more than 100 EdTech companies against it. In the year ahead, we’ll be working with vendors and educators to support broader rollout of this work.

As states work to improve public services and make benefits more effective, AI appears to be a promising tool. But when, and how, should agencies use these systems? And when do they present an unacceptable risk? What safeguards are needed to ensure AI is working as intended — and isn’t running afoul of the law?

To help address these questions, CDT’s Equity in Civic Technology team is producing guidance that lawmakers, senior leaders, and public administrators are already using to ensure that AI works for the public good.

Our suite of products is helping public officials evaluate the transparency of their AI systems, divide responsibility across teams effectively, and understand when AI makes sense to deploy in the first place. These tools provide the structure and expertise that public administrators need as they embark on important technical projects. And they help practitioners enforce basic safety principles, like ensuring human oversight, incorporating community feedback, and building public trust.

As AI is set to play a growing role in public services in the years to come, CDT’s Equity in Civic Tech team is focused on helping government leaders make the technology’s responsible use successful. See our Public Sector AI Resource Library at cdt.org/PublicSectorAI.

As public conversation about how to protect children from harm online intensifies, so has CDT’s focus on meaningful, research-driven solutions that safeguard privacy, free expression, and access to information for kids and adults alike.

One missing element is young people’s own voices. To close this gap, our Research team brought parent and teen perspectives into the conversation, releasing a qualitative study of teens and parents’ views on a range of policy proposals aimed at keeping children safe online. Their request: privacy-protective tools that allow more control over how they approach the web, not one-size-fits-all solutions that ignore the reality that what teens need differs from family to family.

In Congressional testimony, in state legislatures, and in the courts, CDT argued for the kinds of strong privacy protections that help kids and adults stay safe online. We cautioned against legislation that would undermine encryption or impose vague liability provisions that could chill lawful speech – urging lawmakers to pursue targeted, evidence-based solutions that address harms to children without compromising the privacy and security of all users. Meanwhile, we advocated for companies to instill the same principles in their products, outlining technical requirements for age verification tools that avoid the most serious risks to the privacy and security of all web users.

When the Supreme Court upheld a Texas statute requiring age verification by certain online services in FSC v. Paxton, we helped companies and policymakers understand its impact and important limits on when age verification is permissible, working to ensure that an overbroad reading of the law doesn’t do excessive damage to our constitutional rights.

CDT’s Project on Disability Rights in Technology Policy seeks to ensure disability issues and perspectives are fully considered in tech policy conversations.

In 2025, a core priority was ensuring that assistive technologies respect and protect their users’ privacy — ensuring that disabled users aren’t forced to accept needless tradeoffs between equal access and their privacy. Our report, Inclusive Innovation: How to Incorporate Privacy into Inclusive Design for Assistive Technologies explained the ways assistive technology tools can improperly leak or share their users’ data — and gave actionable guidance for better designs. We shared our work at conferences around the country, engaging partners in the disability community and tech developer community alike.

We also provided guidance in other sectors: for example, in a deep-dive on how educators are using AI to develop individualized education programs (IEPs) for disabled students – emphasizing the helpful efficiencies, and the safeguards they have to keep in mind to ensure compliance with student privacy and disability laws.

In the election space, we joined allies in trying to preserve funding for the Protection and Advocacy for Voting Accessibility (PAVA) program, which helps disability groups survey polling places to identify accessibility concerns and work with election officials to help ensure accessibility in the voting process.

Meanwhile, we brought a disability rights lens to several of the most cutting-edge tech policy debates of 2025, sharing the impact for disabled people of workplace monitoring tools, surveillance pricing, anti-protest surveillance technology, age verification mandates, and more. As DOGE made major cuts at the Social Security Administration, the Department of Education and other agencies, and sought access to highly-sensitive data related to Medicare and Medicaid, we emphasized the harm to disabled Americans and the consequences at stake.

On the 35th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act, we wrote for the San Francisco Chronicle about how to minimize the growing impacts of technologies like AI on people with disabilities.

In partnership with groups ranging from the American Association of People with Disabilities to the American Bar Association, we’re making sure the voices of disabled people are front and center in tech policy – and we’re all richer because of it.

In 2025, CDT Europe worked to support stronger, rights-protective enforcement of the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA) by increasing civil society coordination and deepening relationships with EU institutions. By hosting roundtable discussions, and answering calls for feedback on topics like how to protect minors online, CDT Europe helped give rights a voice as the EU puts major rules in place for digital platform safety.

Key to this effort was our DSA Civil Society Organizations Coordination Group, which advocates for the protection of human rights in DSA implementation and enforcement, and grew throughout 2025 to include 60 organizations. The group published the first comprehensive civil society analysis of how “very large” online platforms and search engines could better report on the systemic risks their services present. Zooming in on key topics like online protection of minors, electoral integrity, and online gender-based violence, we found that platforms must make it easier to understand how their design features affect user safety. The European Commission referenced our report in a public hearing on the DSA, citing it as an example of the importance of civil society analysis.

In November, we hosted our annual DSA Civil Society Roundtable in collaboration with the Coordination Group. The event brought together 120 academic and civil society experts for in-depth workshops with policymakers, including representatives from the European Commission, European Parliament, national-level DSA enforcement bodies, OHCHR, and UNESCO. There, the Commission formally announced that the Coordination Group would be invited to a working group meeting of the European Board of Digital Services, and reestablished quarterly roundtables with civil society.

This work was not without its challenges. As civil society organizations working on DSA implementation and enforcement faced direct attacks, we rallied support through increased direct engagement with the European Commission and EU Member States’ Digital Services Coordinators. When X allegedly violated the DSA by repurposing users’ sensitive personal data for targeted advertisements, we supported civil society organizations putting forth a formal complaint with regulatory authorities. We’re advocating for platforms of X’s scale and influence to be held to their compliance obligations, even as U.S. officials castigate EU regulators for their enforcement decisions.

As the EU moves toward evaluation of the DSA in 2027, CDT Europe is well-positioned to continue helping civil society organizations engage in the public interest and achieve longstanding impact on DSA implementation and enforcement.

CDT deepened its work at the intersection of technology and workers’ rights, ensuring that AI and other workplace technologies empower rather than disadvantage workers. As companies increasingly use AI tools to make big employment decisions — from hiring and pay, to promotions and termination — CDT is serving as a trusted resource for state policymakers, civil society, and labor organizations approaching this increasingly important issue.

Through targeted advocacy in Colorado, CDT helped shape a first-of-its-kind law addressing the use of AI in the workplace. CDT was appointed to the state’s AI Impact Task Force to provide technical guidance during the negotiation and passage of the Colorado AI Act, helping civil society partners defend the law against attempts to weaken it.

Along with partners at Coworker.org, CDT published new research shedding light on workers’ perspectives on surveillance and “datafication” on the job. Workers expressed strong support for transparency, limits on off-the-clock monitoring, and protections against productivity tracking that puts their health in danger.

CDT also engaged on California’s landmark automated decision-making technology rules, educating policymakers and advocates alike on how these regulations impact workers and consumers – and supported California’s No Robo Bosses Act, which passed both chambers before being vetoed, and is likely to return next year. By combining state-level advocacy, worker-centered research, and clear policy guidance, CDT helped set the standard for protecting labor rights in the age of AI — advocating for safeguards on automation to support opportunity, fairness, and dignity in the workplace.

The stakes of AI systems are getting higher — and nowhere are they as high as in healthcare settings, where decisions can be life-and-death.

Patient health and privacy face serious threats from emerging commercial and digital data practices, both in the doctor’s office and on our smartphones. As people increasingly share sensitive health questions and data with chatbots and other apps, location tracking, search histories, and other non-medical data sources can reveal sensitive health information — but there are few legal protections for this data even in the most fraught circumstances.

In the wake of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, states have pursued starkly different approaches to reproductive health, and CDT has played a central role in monitoring legal developments and their potential impacts on individuals accessing care. In partnership with reproductive rights organizations and shareholder advocacy experts, we’ve developed and advocate for stronger corporate data and privacy practices that can help keep people’s sensitive data safe.

CDT also helped design new standards for emerging health technologies, which could improve patient care but also carry serious threats to privacy and safety. In comments to the FDA, we stressed the importance of holistic, privacy-preserving monitoring of AI-enabled medical devices, pointing out that patient privacy and trust in medical systems go hand-in-hand.

Throughout all our efforts, CDT underscores the need for meaningful engagement with affected communities, from patients seeking reproductive care to neurodivergent and disabled people. That’s why we’re pushing for clear, meaningful safeguards that can improve outcomes for all of us.