Question: Why does the free email certificate say PERSONA NOT VALIDATED for the OU field?

Answer: This is something that we write on the certificate when we issue it to you. These free e-mail certificates do not go through a validation process to verify your identity. The only way to remove that message is to sign up for an E-PKI account and you have to use a privately held domain name instead of a freely available email address (GMail, Hotmail, Yahoo!, Lycos, etc.)