The Tor Project forced to lay off one-third of its staff

The Tor Project has taken to its blog to announce that is has to lay off one-third of its workforce. The cutbacks have been forced upon the Massachusetts-based internet privacy focused non-profit as a result of the COVID-19 crisis which has seen donations dry up. In a statement from Isabella Bagueros, Executive Director of the Tor Project, it was revealed that 13 staff have been let go, leaving it with just 22 full-time staff to maintain operations moving forward.

Tor, like much of the world, has been caught up in the COVID-19 crisis. Like many other nonprofits and small businesses, the crisis has hit us hard, and we have had to make some difficult decisions.

We had to let go of 13 great people who helped make Tor available to millions of people around the world. We will move forward with a core team of 22 people and remain dedicated to continuing our work on Tor Browser and the Tor software ecosystem.

We are terribly sad to lose such valuable teammates, and we want to let all our users and supporters know that Tor will continue to provide privacy, security, and censorship circumvention services to anyone who needs them.

The Tor Project’s work includes its Tor Browser Bundle and the Tor anonymity network which are both free and open-source software designed to keep users safe from unwanted snooping and hackers. Past backers include the US government, Human Rights Watch, Cambridge University, Google and the Electronic Frontier Foundation. However, it also supported by everyday ordinary individuals who, like the organizations that have supported the Tor Project in the past have all been hit by the economic impacts of COVID-19.