About us

Mission

Our mission is to empower people worldwide by giving out an operating system that protects against surveillance and censorship.

If you want to help, see https://tails.net/contribute/ :)

Team members

name	role	email	Matrix/IRC
intrigeri	Tails Team Lead	intrigeri at torproject dot org	intrigeri
anonym	Tails Developer	anonym at torproject dot org	anonym
boyska	Tails Developer	boyska at torproject dot org	boyska

Contact

If you already know which individual team member is the best placed to have the conversation you need, contact them directly. In doubt, contact the Team Lead.

Email

If you need to get in touch with the entire Tails Team at once, you can:

• write to the foundations@tails.net Schleuder mailing list
  • You can encrypt your email with our OpenPGP key (details).
• mention @tails-team on GitLab: GitLab will send an email notification about it to every member of the Tails Team, and add it to their To-Do list.

Text-based chat

See https://tails.net/contribute/chat/.

How our team & work connect to the rest of Tor

The Tails product is built on top of other Tor products (among other things), so we collaborate regularly with the teams that build these products:

• Applications Team
• Network Team

We constantly work with the UX Team, that helps us understand the needs of our users and make the Tails user experience a better fit for their needs.

Like all other teams at Tor, we also interface with internal structures and support teams, in particular TPA given our strong dependency on systems infrastructure.

We interact less frequently with other teams but we do appreciate their work!

Process

• responsibilities
• meetings
• roles
• onboarding
• Bug triaging
• Task management

Other resources

• other public doc
• private team wiki

Priorities

Priorities for 2025

MUST

• Remediate vulnerabilities identified by security audit and pick low-hanging fruits to avoid repeating past mistakes
• Converge workflows and tooling towards Tor's — MUST bundle
  • Hand over ticket gardening role to intrigeri (tails#20510)
  • Revisit Tails Team Lead / Project Manager arrangements for FY 2025-2026 (tails#20700 (closed))
• KTLO, including:
  • Release Tails 7.0 based on Debian 13 (Trixie)
  • Upgrade Tor Browser to new ESR
  • Upgrade Thunderbird to new ESR
  • Prototype and collaborate on using Arti
• Fix long-lasting usability issues (P165 C.1)
  • We'll determine which ones when we prioritize UX Debt issues.
• Act on feedback received by email and in-app tool, still with a focus on identifying high-impact work (P165 C.2)
  • We'll determine in Q1 if this work should have a particular focus in 2025 (in 2024 it was Persistent Storage & partitioning robustness).
• Improve test suite robustness, focusing on time sinks (P165 D.1)
• Research alternatives to Etcher for Windows; then, if there's a good enough candidate, switch to it
  • Goal: Improve the privacy of the Tails installation process
• Improve website navigation

SHOULD

• Bring the list of UX Debt down way more
  • Grant Tor Browser access to files as designated by the user (tails#10422 (closed))
  • Persistent language and keyboard (tails#5501)
  • Tor Connection bundle
  • Drop some issues of least priority
• Kickstart project to collect the metrics we need in a privacy-preserving manner: potentially a poor-person's version implemented; potentially, have plans e.g. an analysis to get grants with the rest of Tor (so this would happen >= 2026)
  • Goal: Enable ourselves to make decisions and evaluate progress based on usage data
• Talk with sysadmins about the future of Jenkins (tails#20774 (closed))
• Improve website onboarding
  • Make plans on the big issues (after having installed your first Tails)
  • Fix smaller issues
• Rename GitLab label: Foundations Team → Tails Team (tails#20746 (closed))
  • Goal: finish the migration to the new terminology, avoid confusion caused by using obsolete terminology.
• Start integrating our doc for contributors with Tor's, identifying other problems in this section along the way (tails#20768)
• Develop better interoperability with mobile messaging apps aka. Signal support (tails#14567)
• Improve story for Persistent Storage backups (tails#20194)
• Persistent Storage features (iff. specific crowdfunding)
  • https://gitlab.tails.boum.org/tails/tails/-/issues/?sort=updated_desc&state=opened&label_name%5B%5D=C%3APersistence&search=Persistent%20Storage%20feature&first_page_size=100

MAY

• Finish the initial exploration and prototyping of the automatic verification of Tails downloads
• Define 5-years strategy for the Tails product & team in the Tor organization
• Converge workflows and tooling towards Tor's - MAY bundle
  • Migrate from Schleuder to Mailman
  • Migrate from XMPP to IRC (unless we build confidence that TPI will migrate away from IRC by the end of 2026)

Priorities for 2026

MUST

Sustainability	Adoption	Quality & Retention	Long-term strategy	Safety
Upgrade to Tor Browser 16.0 (tails#21318)	Signal (tails#14567) or VPN Browser (tails#19465)	Signal (tails#14567) or VPN Browser (tails#19465)	Have a conversation about privacy-preserving metrics (tails#19476)	Protect users against compromised infrastructure (tails#21077)
Upgrade to Thunderbird 153 (tails#21319)	Improve onboarding of Windows 11 users (tails#21132, tails#21133)	Polish the product's UX
Finish upgrades to Trixie (tails#20581, tails#20249)
Ensure long-term sustainability of our CI setup (tails#21320)
Be a good downstream for the NT wrt. Arti development
Try cheap upstreaming of about:tor customization (tails#21251)
Identify & fix most user-impacting uses of boum.org (tails#21322)
Ensure test suite does not get more fragile

SHOULD

Sustainability	Adoption	Quality & Retention	Long-term strategy	Safety
Prepare the migration to Tor's GitLab (tails#21324)	Improve website onboarding (tails#21325)		Define N-years strategy for Tails in TPI (tails#21326)
Unwrap the Tor Browser (tails#21185)	Snowflake (tails#5494)
	Determine what it would take for viable Apple silicon support (tails#21321)
	Circumvention Settings API (tails#15331)

MAY

Sustainability	Adoption	Quality & Retention	Long-term strategy	Safety
Release process: drop the "Build the almost-final images" step (tails#19015)	Simplify tpsd to make it more robust (tails#21328)	More apps can be installed via Flatpak		Measure percentage of users who verify image download (tails#20546)
Reduce dependency on boum.org (tails#21323)	Improve error messages to support users whose USB stick is defective (tails#21329)	Improve UX of upgrades and minimize technical debt (tails#21187)
Converge workflows and tooling to TPI's (tails#21327)
Make Tails Cloner not a blocker (tails#19666)
Upstream about:tor customization (tails#21251)

Priorities for 2027

These are candidates that emerged while doing tails/tails#20795+:

MUST

• Migrate to gitlab.torproject.org
• Port to Debian 14 (Forky)
• 1 big feature among:
  • Apple silicon / ARM64
  • Improve UX of upgrades (e.g. big IUKs)
  • Persistent Storage backups — might require rewriting Tails Cloner
  • the one we did not implement in 2026, among Signal & VPN Browser

Misc

• Make plans for the merge of the Weblate infrastructure
• Bigger work on hiding / censorship / Tor Connection
• More Pluggable Transports
• Persistent Storage features
• Additional Flatpak apps
• VPN for Signal (video calls)
• FAT partition with help
• metrics that users trust
• remove dependency on boum.org (tails#21323)

Past priorities

• 2025
• 2024
  • priorities were not set, beyond doing the work planned as part of S11
  • done in 2024
• 3-year strategy for 2023-2025

Roadmap

This is the big picture. For details about what's happening on the short term, see the board and filter with the current milestone.

Projects

None at the moment.

2025 Q4

• Frontdesk (@boyska)
• Upgrade to Debian 13 and release 7.0 (P165):
  • Post-release feedback & fixes
• Team organization
  • Define Tails Team priorities & roadmap for 2026 (tails/tails#20795) (everyone, late October to mid-November sprint)
• KTLO & sustainability
  • Upgrade Tor Browser to new ESR (P165) (tails#20771 (closed)) (@anonym & @intrigeri)
  • Upgrade Thunderbird to new ESR (P165) (tails#20772 (closed)) (@anonym)
  • GitLab CI: use Debian 13 (Trixie) containers (tails#21018 (closed)) (@intrigeri)
  • Upgrade Vagrant basebox to Debian Trixie (tails#20249) (@anonym → @intrigeri)
  • Remove support for BitTorrent download (tails#19275)
• Recurring P165 (OTF FOSS Sustainability Fund) work — until the end of November
  • A.2 Prototype and collaborate on using Arti
    • Monitor the work on Arti's RPC and make sure our needs are met (tails#20508)
  • B.1 Release management and smaller OS migrations
  • C.1 Fix long-lasting usability issues
    • Persistent language and keyboard (tails#5501) (@boyska)
    • Update our UX Debt backlog (tails#20088) (stretch goal)
    • Cheapest bits of Tor Connection bundle (stretch goal)
    • Improve website onboarding (tails#20777 (closed)) (@sajolida)
  • C.2 Act on feedback received by email and in-app tool
    • Explain better the administration password when asking for it (tails#15268 (closed)) (@boyska)
    • Windows 11 fixes (@sajolida)
      • New reset procedure (tails#21132)
      • New start procedure (tails#21133)
    • Some more? (candidates: tails#20785 (closed)) (stretch goal)
  • D.1 Make the Tails development process more efficient (test suite) (@anonym)
    • Test suite: dealing with polkit prompt while us... (tails#21062 - closed)
    • "The proxy server is refusing connections" afte... (tails#20297 - closed)
    • Long delay in Welcome Screen on Trixie for deve... (tails#21103 - closed)
    • Test suite: wait_for_ponytail sometimes fails i... (tails#21211)
    • Test suite: after recent Chutney updates it som... (tails#21201 - closed)
• Support fundraising efforts
  • Switch to customized about:tor as the homepage of Tor Browser (tails#21222 (closed))
    • Ship a first iteration (@sajolida, @anonym)
      • It's OK if worst case it's a non-customized about:tor for 7.1.
    • Upstream our about:tor customization (tails#21251) (@intrigeri) → postponed
    • Document and automate updating our about:tor customization patch series (tails#21265 (closed)) (@anonym)
    • Review design of about:tor in Tails (tails#21260) (@sajolida)
  • Uplift VPN project to operations (tails#21190) (@intrigeri)
    • Explore VPN browser with VPN managed by NetworkManager (tails#21189 (closed)) (@boyska)
    • Decide implementation strategy (@boyska, @sajolida)
    • Document decision (@boyska)
    • Uplift to operations (@intrigeri)
  • Metrics (tails#19476)
    • Ping to check the status (@boyska)
    • Determine our next steps
• Converge workflows and tooling towards Tor's
  • Next steps on Contribute (tails#20768):
    • Low-hanging fruits that we can do on our own, as planned initially for 2025? (@intrigeri) (stretch goal as cost/benefit is not amazing)
  • User support parity with other Tor products (tails#20773): kickstart the conversation (@intrigeri)
  • Talk with sysadmins about the future of Jenkins (tails#20774 (closed)) (@intrigeri)

Boards:

• Tails Team in 2025Q4 with no milestone
• UX in 2025Q4 with no milestone
• UX Team Roadmap (to check sajolida's capacity for Tails)

2026Q1

• KTLO & Sustainability
  • Frontdesk (@boyska)
  • Test suite health monitor (@anonym)
  • Try cheap upstreaming of about:tor customization (tails#21251) (@boyska, @sajolida) — MUST
  • Finish upgrades to Trixie (tails#20581, tails#20249) (@intrigeri) — MUST
  • Ensure test suite does not get more fragile (@anonym) – MUST
  • Be a good downstream for the NT wrt. Arti development (@boyska) — MUST
• Adoption
  • Determine what it would take for viable Apple silicon support (tails#21321) (@intrigeri) — SHOULD
  • Snowflake (tails#5494) (@boyska) — SHOULD
  • Circumvention Settings API (tails#15331) (@anonym, @sajolida) — SHOULD
• Quality & Retention
  • Polish the product's UX — MUST
• Long-term strategy
  • Have a conversation about privacy-preserving metrics (tails#19476) (@boyska) — MUST
• Safety

Boards:

• 2026Q1 with no milestone
• UX Team Roadmap (to check sajolida's capacity for Tails)

2026Q2

• Capacity:
  • not much @sajolida
• KTLO & Sustainability
  • Frontdesk (@boyska)
  • Test suite health monitor (@anonym)
  • Identify & fix most user-impacting uses of boum.org (tails#21322) (@boyska) — MUST
  • Ensure long-term sustainability of our CI setup (tails#21320) (@anonym) — MUST
  • Ensure test suite does not get more fragile (@anonym) — MUST
  • Be a good downstream for the NT wrt. Arti development (@boyska) — MUST
  • Unwrap the Tor Browser (tails#21185) (@anonym) — SHOULD
• Adoption
  • Improve onboarding of Windows 11 users (@sajolida) — MUST
    • New reset procedure (tails#21132)
    • New start procedure (tails#21133)
• Quality & Retention
  • Polish the product's UX (bigger focus than the rest of the year by @boyska) — MUST
• Long-term strategy
  • Have a conversation about privacy-preserving metrics (tails#19476) (@boyska) — MUST
• Safety
  • Protect users against compromised infrastructure (tails#21077) (@intrigeri) — MUST

Boards:

• 2026Q2 with no milestone
• UX Team Roadmap (to check sajolida's capacity for Tails)

2026Q3

• KTLO & Sustainability
  • Frontdesk
  • Test suite health monitor (@anonym)
  • Upgrade to Tor Browser 16.0 (tails#21318) (@intrigeri) — MUST
  • Upgrade to Thunderbird 153 (tails#21319) (@intrigeri) — MUST
  • Ensure test suite does not get more fragile (@anonym) — MUST
  • Be a good downstream for the NT wrt. Arti development (@boyska) — MUST
• Adoption
  • Signal (tails#14567) or VPN Browser (tails#19465) (@anonym, @boyska, @sajolida) — MUST
  • Improve website onboarding (tails#21325) (@sajolida) — SHOULD
• Quality & Retention
  • Polish the product's UX — MUST
• Long-term strategy
  • Have a conversation about privacy-preserving metrics (tails#19476) (@boyska) — MUST
  • Define N-years strategy for Tails in TPI (tails#21326) (@intrigeri) — SHOULD
• Safety

Boards:

• 2026Q3 with no milestone
• UX Team Roadmap (to check sajolida's capacity for Tails)

2026Q4

• KTLO & Sustainability
  • Frontdesk
  • Test suite health monitor (@anonym)
  • Define Tails Team priorities & roadmap for 2027 (@tails-team, @sajolida, potentially PM or Product Managers) — MUST
  • Ensure test suite does not get more fragile (@anonym) — MUST
  • Be a good downstream for the NT wrt. Arti development (@boyska) — MUST
  • Prepare the migration to Tor's GitLab (tails#21324) (@intrigeri) — SHOULD
• Adoption
  • Signal or VPN Browser (@anonym, @boyska, @sajolida) — MUST
• Quality & Retention
  • Polish the product's UX — MUST
• Long-term strategy
  • Have a conversation about privacy-preserving metrics (tails#19476) (@boyska) — MUST
• Safety

Boards:

• 2026Q4 with no milestone
• UX Team Roadmap (to check sajolida's capacity for Tails)