team

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
  • 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:

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

Other resources

Priorities

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 (closed), tails#21133 (closed)) Polish the product's UX
Finish upgrades to Trixie (tails#20581 (closed), tails#20249 (closed))
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 for new users (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 (closed))

MAY

Sustainability Adoption Quality & Retention Long-term strategy Safety
Release process: drop the "Build the almost-final images" step (tails#19015 (closed)) 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

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

Project 202

2026 Q2

  • KTLO & Sustainability

    • More releases than usual
    • Frontdesk (@boyska)
    • Test suite health monitor (@anonym)
    • Ensure test suite does not get more fragile (@anonym) — MUST
    • Identify & fix most user-impacting uses of boum.org (tails#21322) (@boyska) — MUST
    • Be a good downstream for the NT wrt. Arti development (@boyska) — MUST
    • Ensure long-term sustainability of our CI setup (tails#21320) (@anonym) — MUST
    • Ensure Dogtail 2 works for our needs, before the Forky freeze (tails#21431 (closed)) (@anonym) — SHOULD

  • Adoption

    • P202 (Signal) — Objective 1: Enable Tails users to install Flatpak applications — MUST

  • Quality & Retention

  • Long-term strategy

  • Safety

    • tails#21481+ — MUST
      • Ask TPA to implement cheap mitigation
      • Start discussion with TPA about trusted mirror pool (tails#21490)

  • Potential spillover from our original Q1 and Q2 plans:

    • Try cheap upstreaming of about:tor customization (tails#21251) (@boyska, @sajolida) — MUST
    • Protect users against compromised infrastructure (tails#21077) (@intrigeri) — MUST
    • Determine what it would take for viable Apple silicon support (tails#21321) (@intrigeri) — SHOULD
      • Wait another month or so for NoisyCoil to answer
    • Unwrap the Tor Browser (tails#21185) (@anonym) — SHOULD
    • Snowflake (tails#5494) (@boyska) — SHOULD
    • Support automatic bridge retrieval, iteration 2 (tails#21472) — SHOULD
      • The scope is exactly what's written on the issue currently, i.e. our original iteration 2, and includes none of the other issues identified while developing iteration 1.

Boards

2026 Q3

Note: These plans are outdated. We need to update our plans, taking into account P202 will take more efforts than what we had allocated initially when we created our roadmap.

  • KTLO & Sustainability

  • Adoption

    • P202 (Signal) — Objective 2: Implement basic usability features for Flatpak apps in Tails: access to the Internet, localization — MUST

      • Configure Flatpak to inject custom variables into every app environment (P202 2.1) (tails#21553)
      • Evaluate whether standard environment variables (HTTP_PROXY and SOCKS_SERVER) reliably route Flatpak traffic over Tor (P202 2.2) (tails#21554)
      • Assess long-term viability of environment variable -based torification of Flatpak apps vs. Arti (P202 2.3) (tails#21555)
      • Implement the selected Tor-routing mechanism for Flatpak apps (P202 2.4) (tails#21556)
      • Evaluate suitability of Flatpak’s mechanism to guess which languages are included when installing Locale extensions (P202 2.5) (tails#21557)
      • Implement installing Flatpak Locale extensions according to users’ localization settings (P202 2.6) (tails#21558)
      • Write automated tests for localization of Flatpak apps (P202 2.7) (tails#21559)
      • Assess UX impact when users change locales between installation and usage (P202 2.8) (tails#21560)
      • Research and implement mitigations for significant localization regressions (P202 2.9) (tails#21561)

    • P202 (Signal) — Objective 3: Make Flatpak apps sufficiently safe in Tails — MUST

      • Identify unsafe configurations of Flatpak apps (P202 3.1) (tails#21563)
      • Evaluate feasibility of securer configurations (P202 3.2) (tails#21564)
      • Implement the most cost-effective mitigations for unsafely configured Flatpak apps (P202 3.3) (tails#21565)

    • P202 (Signal) — Objective 5: Security audit and fixes — MUST

      • Organize the security audit ahead of time (P202 5.1 + 5.2) (tails/tails#21571) (@boyska)

    • Improve website for new users (tails#21325) (@sajolida) — SHOULD

  • Quality & Retention

  • Long-term strategy

  • Safety

Boards:

2026 Q4

Note: These plans are outdated. We need to update our plans, taking into account P202 will take more efforts than what we had allocated initially when we created our roadmap.

  • KTLO & Sustainability

    • Frontdesk
    • Test suite health monitor (@anonym)
    • Ensure test suite does not get more fragile (@anonym) — MUST
    • Define Tails Team priorities & roadmap for 2027 (@tails-team, @sajolida, potentially PM or Product Managers) — 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

    • P202 (Signal) — Objective 4: Support persistent installation and upgrade of Flatpak apps in Tails — MUST
      • Allow users to save their Flatpak apps and data in Persistent Storage (P202 4.1) (tails#21566)
      • Adapt integration tests for persistent Flatpak apps installation (P202 4.2) (tails#21567)
      • Evaluate GNOME Software’s Flatpak upgrade flow, particularly for low-bandwidth users (P202 4.3) (tails#21568)
      • Implement suitable upgrade mechanisms via GNOME Software or a Tails-specific workflow (P202 4.4) (tails#21569)
    • P202 (Signal) — Objective 5: Security audit and fixes — MUST
      • Third-party security audit of the Flatpak support (P202 5.1 + 5.2) (tails/tails#21571) (@boyska)
        • Initial audit is completed and vulnerabilities have been reported to the team

  • Quality & Retention

  • Long-term strategy

  • Safety

Boards:

2027 Q1

  • Adoption
    • P202 (Signal) — Objective 5: Security audit and fixes — MUST
      • Fix vulnerabilities identified by the Flatpak audit (P202 5.3) (tails#21572)
      • Third-party security audit of the Flatpak support (P202 5.1 + 5.2) (tails/tails#21571) (@boyska)
        • Fixes are verified by the auditors
        • Final report of the audit including verification of fixes
      • Post-mortem of vulnerabilities identified by the Flatpak audit (P202 5.4) (tails#21585)
    • P202 (Signal) — Objective 6: Align UX and release Tails with Signal support — MUST
      • Align Signal's UX with Tails' UX requirements (P202 6.1) (tails#21587)
      • Release public alpha of Tails with Flatpak and Signal support, along with a call for community testing (P202 6.2) (tails#21588)
      • Run moderated usability studies of the new Flatpak features, with high-risk users and report (P202 6.3) (tails#21589) (@sajolida)
      • Produce design documentation about support for Flatpak apps such as Signal (P202 6.4) (tails#21590)
      • Triage user feedback gathered via the call for testing and usability tests for Flatpak (P202 6.5) (tails#21591) (@intrigeri, @sajolida)
      • Coordinate localization of Flatpak support (P202 6.10) (tails#21596) (@emmapeel)

2027 Q2

  • Adoption
    • P202 (Signal) — Objective 5: Security audit and fixes — MUST
      • Implement cost-effective fixes for root causes of vulnerabilities identified by the Flatpak audit (P202 5.5) (tails#21586)
    • P202 (Signal) — Objective 6: Align UX and release Tails with Signal support — MUST
      • Evaluate cost/benefit of fixing the issues identified via the call for testing and usability tests for Flatpak (P202 6.6) (tails#21592)
      • Design & implement fixes for the most important issues identified in the testing phase of Flatpak (P202 6.7) (tails#21593)
      • Produce documentation about using and managing Flatpak apps such as Signal in Tails (P202 6.8) (tails#21594) (@sajolida)
      • Publish an official release of Tails with Flatpak and Signal support (P202 6.9) (tails#21595)
      • Process feedback about Flatpak from users to identify remaining issues (P202 6.11) (tails#21597)
      • Evaluate cost/benefit of fixing the issues identified after the Flatpak release (P202 6.12) (tails#21598)
      • Design and implement fixes for the most important issues discovered after the Flatpak release (P202 6.13) (tails#21599)
      • Clean up Flatpak feature flag (tails#21600)