New Yubico for Free Speech Program Arms Nonprofits with Strong Authentication

2020 continues to be a challenging year in many ways for all of us, but today, we’re proud to share some hopeful news — Yubico is introducing the Yubico for Free Speech Program, an initiative designed to defend digital privacy, online security, and free speech for at-risk individuals and nonprofit organizations.

As of July 1, 2020, Yubico has committed to donate one YubiKey for every 20 YubiKeys purchased on yubico.com. Using these keys, we will equip nonprofit organizations, and the populations they serve, with the power of hardware-backed security — free of cost. Our goal is to enable these organizations to safely continue their important work of serving, empowering, and protecting vulnerable populations most at risk of targeted cyber attacks.

Enabling YubiKey protection for at-risk individuals

For years, Yubico has worked with nonprofit organizations like Freedom of the Press, ISC Project, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Defending Digital Campaigns, and the Human Rights Foundation. With the Yubico for Free Speech Program and Yubico’s new donation initiative, we have formalized this work to reach a wider range of organizations that align with our shared desire of upholding and protecting free speech, including:

• Non-profit organizations that protect journalists, freelancers, and writers from doxing and other targeted attacks in an effort to uphold transparent, fair, and ethical reporting.
• Human rights organizations and activist groups focused on ending racism, sexism, LGBTQ violence, domestic abuse, and other social justice issues around the world.
• Bi-partisan networks that fight to preserve democratic integrity by securing political campaigns, political candidates, and election processes.

Why free speech matters to Yubico 

Free speech is an important human right, and one that aligns closely with Yubico’s greater mission: to make the internet safer for everyone. We believe that free speech and free press play a critical role in exposing injustice and inequality, and we also know that free speech is under attack in many ways and for many groups of people. Coercive force, disinformation, doxxing, and cyber attacks are used across the globe each and every day to silence voices that matter.

Yubico has a longstanding partnership with Freedom of the Press where we’ve donated YubiKeys to secure their organizations and the individuals they work with. “At Freedom of the Press, we encourage all of our clients and trainees to use Yubikeys to secure their accounts and important communications. This new program will make hardware tokens available to so many who have wanted to bolster their security, but couldn’t quite justify the expense. We’re thrilled to support Yubico in their initiative to bring a safer internet to those on the front lines of great causes” – Harlo Holmes, Director of Newsroom Digital Security at Freedom of the Press.

We believe that freedom of speech must not only be protected, but also exercised — at home, at work, in the streets, and online. This is the path to educating ourselves and others, while evolving as a society.

Join the cause 

If you are with a nonprofit organization that values free speech and defending human rights and you are interested in protecting yourself or others online, apply to join our Yubico for Free Speech Program here.

Please also join us in helping this program grow! Here’s what you can do:

• Purchase any of our products from yubico.com to contribute to the amount of YubiKeys we are able to donate, or
• Share your favorite nonprofits with us if you believe they could benefit from strong authentication and would be a fit for this program.

We thank you for your support!