Privacy begins with defunding your data, not expecting governments or corporations to protect you. Data has become a commodity. Part of protecting your privacy means not participating, not sharing truths online, and being conscious of your patterns.
I have spent years helping people find that place where freedom rings true for them. The cases have ranged from stalking and business violence to family protection and full-blown “I never want to be found” cases. Freedom and privacy have many definitions because they are ways of life that matter differently to each of us. I want to wear jeans, not cut my hair, and travel when I want. For me, that is the pinnacle. Your freedom and privacy are self-defined, not given to you as a service.
It has become obvious that our privacy is at stake in too many ways for me to list. Simply look at mobile and street surveillance. But before we blame the world around us, we need to look at our participation-our existence in the hive. I do not mean only posting content online or scrolling through short videos. That is a no-brainer example of being stuck in the digital mud. At the end of the day, we have sold off pieces of ourselves.
We do not think of privacy, at its core, as protecting ourselves from ourselves.
People still contact me and want to know how to disappear and delete their digital footprints, as if predators are hunting computer cookies these days. Nothing is ever going away. Sure, they got your online activity from all those social media posts about hamburgers, vacations, and your cool car. Now it goes even deeper than that: they are extracting your behavior and patterns. In strategic situations, we act on what we know and prepare for what we cannot see. Digital addiction creates the mist, while governments and corporations extract our behavior from behind it.
Defunding your data means consciously not giving it to them. Defunding your data means not sharing truths about yourself online. Maybe it means using different mobile phones for different actions. Maybe it means setting up stronger privacy on your laptop or computer. Maybe it means not being identifiable in the digital world. Maybe defunding our data is our way of saying no.
Privacy Consultations
Frank M. Ahearn offers discreet privacy consultations for people facing stalking, exposure, identity risks, or the need to disappear. Learn more about his disappear and privacy services.
About Frank M. Ahearn
Frank M. Ahearn began his career as a skip tracer and social engineer in 1984. He later reversed that work and began helping people protect their identities, create disinformation, disappear, and prevent themselves from being found. He is the New York Times bestselling author of How to Disappear, is based in Europe, and works with clients internationally.
Books by Frank M. Ahearn
How to Disappear: A Pocket Guide to Thinking, Planning, and Staying Gone
United States—Edition 1 | United States—Edition 2 | United Kingdom | Canada | Germany | France | Spain | Italy | Netherlands | Japan | Mexico
How to Disappear: AI War Edition – I Am Not Your Data, Digital Starvation and the Art of Becoming Extinct
United States | United Kingdom | Australia | Canada | France | Spain | Italy | Netherlands | Japan | Mexico
How to Disappear Journal: Seventy of the Most Important Questions to Ask Yourself Before You Disappear
United States | Australia | United Kingdom | Canada
I Was a Skip Tracer
United States | United Kingdom | Australia | Canada | Germany