Digital Defense Fund (DDF)

Overview

Digital Defense Fund (DDF) is a US nonprofit technology organization that provides digital security support, training, and resources to organizations working in abortion access, reproductive healthcare, and —since 2023—a broader set of movements for autonomy and liberation including trans rights, disability rights, harm reduction, and pro-democracy work. Founded in 2017 as a project of the Hopewell Fund, DDF is a small, multidisciplinary team of organizers, engineers, designers, abortion fund volunteers, and practical support advocates who bring their own direct experience with abortion access and reproductive justice to their technical work. The organization is led by director Kate Bertash, whose background spans technology, activism, art, and product design. DDF received the Electronic Frontier Foundation's 2022 Award for Civil Rights Technology in recognition of its work building digital security capacity across the abortion access movement.

History and Founding

Digital Defense Fund was established in 2017 in direct response to the 2016 US presidential election, which created heightened concern across the reproductive rights movement about the security of digital communications, organizational data, and individual privacy in a more hostile regulatory environment. DDF's founders recognized that abortion access organizations—clinics, abortion funds, practical support networks, and individual providers — were operating with the same digital vulnerabilities as most small nonprofits, but facing a specifically elevated threat landscape: ideologically motivated adversaries, potential government scrutiny, and the concrete risk that digital evidence could be used to criminalize abortion-related activity.

The organization's founding insight, drawn from years of work in reproductive justice and security, was that the digital infrastructure of the abortion access movement needed not just better technology but movement-aligned technical expertise—people who understood both how encryption and threat modeling worked and why clinics answer phones the way they do, why abortion funds handle client data carefully, and what it actually feels like to seek an abortion in a context of legal hostility. DDF was built to bridge that gap.

The urgency of DDF's work intensified sharply after the US Supreme Court's June 2022 decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, which overturned Roe v. Wade and eliminated the federal constitutional right to abortion. The decision immediately triggered abortion bans in multiple states and transformed digital data — text messages, location history, search queries, payment records, period tracking app data, and health records—into potential criminal evidence. DDF became a central resource for organizations and individuals trying to navigate this new landscape. In 2023, DDF expanded its formal mission to encompass all movements working alongside one another for autonomy and liberation, reflecting its deepened collaboration with trans rights organizations, harm reduction workers, and others facing related patterns of surveillance and criminalization.

Programs and Work

Digital security evaluations and implementation support. DDF works directly with abortion access organizations—clinics, abortion funds, practical support groups, and provider networks—to assess their existing digital security posture and identify priority improvements. This involves reviewing organizational practices around communications, data storage, device security, and staff training, and then supporting organizations through the process of implementing changes. Recommendations can include adopting encrypted messaging for internal communications, using secure email platforms, enabling multi-factor authentication, establishing data retention and deletion policies, and addressing the specific risks posed by physical surveillance outside clinic buildings.

Staff training. DDF conducts free digital security and privacy training for staff and volunteers at abortion access organizations and allied movements. Trainings are available to any organization working in the space and cover topics ranging from introduction to digital security and threat modeling to specific practices around data protection, secure communications, and how to handle law enforcement requests. DDF offers interactive exercises—including a threat modeling workshop and an encryption explainer—designed to build genuine team buy-in for security practices rather than simply delivering compliance checklists.

Public resources and guides. DDF maintains a publicly accessible library of digital security resources. Its Foundations of Organizational Technology guide provides a starting point for small organizations to set-up strong data security practices. Its Guide to Abortion and Pregnancy Privacy addresses the key privacy considerations for people in states where abortion is restricted or criminalized—covering phone location data, search history, payment methods, period tracking applications, messaging apps, and the limitations of HIPAA in legal proceedings. The guide makes clear, based on documented criminal cases, that human informants rather than technology have been the primary source of evidence in past abortion prosecutions — but that digital hygiene can still limit exposure and buy time to access legal support. DDF also publishes a resource library of recommended third-party guides, slide decks, and external organizations for further reading and referral.

Software development. DDF builds bespoke software tools for abortion access organizations, designed to meet the specific operational and security needs of the field — needs that generic commercial software rarely addresses and that require both technical skill and movement knowledge to get right.

Techies for Reproductive Justice and Abortion Access Hackathon. DDF convenes and supports technologist communities working on abortion access. The Abortion Access Hackathon, led by Kate Bertash, brings together over 1,200 technologists to work on specific projects for the reproductive justice movement. DDF also connects engineers, designers, and other technologists to volunteer opportunities, long-term projects, and one-off contributions within the broader bodily autonomy movement.

Context: Digital Evidence and Reproductive Healthcare

DDF occupies a distinctive position at the intersection of digital civil liberties and reproductive justice because the criminalization of abortion transforms an unusually wide range of everyday digital activity into potential evidence. Location data from phones can place someone at an abortion clinic or reveal travel across state lines to obtain care. Search queries, text messages, and email can document the process of seeking or providing abortion information. Payment records—including credit card transactions and insurance claims—can leave a clear paper trail. Period tracking apps, while not the primary form of digital evidence in documented prosecutions, collect intimate health data that users may wish to protect. HIPAA, the US health privacy law, does not shield medical records from law enforcement requests in criminal investigations — a fact that DDF highlights as a major source of misunderstanding among patients and providers. DDF's approach to all of this is grounded, not alarmist: the guides and training it provides are calibrated to actual documented threat patterns in states where abortion has been criminalized, drawing on research by If/When/How, the National Advocates for Pregnant Women, and the Center on Privacy and Technology at Georgetown Law.

Access and Usage

DDF's public resources—guides, training materials, and curated external references — are freely available at digitaldefensefund.org/learn. Organizations seeking direct security support, training, or software development assistance can contact DDF through the website's contact form; all trainings are free for organizations working in abortion access and allied movements. DDF does not typically grant press interviews given the sensitive nature of its work, but maintains a press page with background, context, and recommended specialist organisations for journalists covering the intersection of digital rights and reproductive healthcare. The organization is a project of the Hopewell Fund and is funded by foundations and individual donors; it has received support from the Ford Foundation, among others.