Electronic Frontier Finland or Effi is a Finnish

Finland

Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...

 on-line civil rights

Civil rights

Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' freedom from unwarranted infringement by governments and private organizations, and ensure one's ability to participate in the civil and political life of the state without discrimination or repression.Civil rights include...

 organization founded in 2001 and had over 1500 members in 2010. While not formally affiliated with the U.S.-based Electronic Frontier Foundation

Electronic Frontier Foundation

The Electronic Frontier Foundation is an international non-profit digital rights advocacy and legal organization based in the United States...

, the two organizations share many of their goals. Effi is a member of the Global Internet Liberty Campaign and a founding member of European Digital Rights (EDRi).

Effi's stated aim is to protect and promote freedom of speech

Freedom of speech

Freedom of speech is the freedom to speak freely without censorship. The term freedom of expression is sometimes used synonymously, but includes any act of seeking, receiving and imparting information or ideas, regardless of the medium used...

 and privacy

Privacy

Privacy is the ability of an individual or group to seclude themselves or information about themselves and thereby reveal themselves selectively...

 on the Internet

Internet

The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...

 as well as in Finnish society in general. Among other things, Effi has lobbied for effective anti-spam legislation and against software patent

Software patent

Software patent does not have a universally accepted definition. One definition suggested by the Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure is that a software patent is a "patent on any performance of a computer realised by means of a computer program".In 2005, the European Patent Office...

s. Effi has also assumed a leading role on certain consumer rights issues such as CD copy protection, in part due to the reluctance of traditional Finnish consumer protection

Consumer protection

Consumer protection laws designed to ensure fair trade competition and the free flow of truthful information in the marketplace. The laws are designed to prevent businesses that engage in fraud or specified unfair practices from gaining an advantage over competitors and may provide additional...

 agencies to address them.

Effi presents the annual Finnish Big Brother Awards

Big Brother Awards (Finland)

The Big Brother Awards in Finland is the version of the international Privacy International's Big Brother Awards by Electronic Frontier Finland...

 in cooperation with Privacy International

Privacy International

Privacy International is a UK-based non-profit organisation formed in 1990, "as a watchdog on surveillance and privacy invasions by governments and corporations." PI has organised campaigns and initiatives in more than fifty countries and is based in London, UK.-Formation, background and...

.

Board members include Ville Oksanen, Tapani Tarvainen, Leena Romppainen and Timo Karjalainen as chairman.