It seems to me they just use smartphones like the average working class person does, how do they even protect their privacy? Do they have a special variant of smartphone that’s doesn’t have tracking?
Your average “rich” American (millionaires) are likely no better equipped than the average person when it comes online tracking and fingerprinting. The ultra-wealthy (billionaires) own the platforms carrying out such tracking. If you’re talking about tracking by governmental groups, I don’t think anyone is exempt.
Financially they use trusts and LLCs to shield their assets so they are not in their names or directly owned.
They can afford to hire specialists
Rich people don’t care about their privacy as much as they have their own IT department to do the work for them (source: I’ve been their IT department).
Their devices are just as secure as you would imagine any high profile CEO. Their home networks can cost up to $100k and are super secure with constant monitoring. They all have “normal” devices but they’ll usually have a VPN tunnel.
But, stuff like their Facebook logins, etc they’re still pretty bad with passwords, from my experience. I’d say less than percent of the people I’ve worked with have asked serious questions about their cyber security.
This 100%.
Wealthy people essentially pay staff to do make things happen for them, and those staff don’t sign up for IG or FB stressing abou making sure to use their ONE email like RichieRich1975@hotmail.com for everything.
PA staff are both IT staff and human password managers, creating and curating massive sets of logins that are functionally disposable. With enough clout and money, if you DO have a problem with a social media platform, or your phone number, a PA calls an Executive CSR and sorts out the problem.
So it’s that their “privacy” is masked by the haphazard way they interact with things that track them. For them, tracking them is security to ensure you know who they are so that have a frictionless experience. If they want a dummy account to creep on people or be a perv, they get that easily, too.
They are better with their physical privacy (i.e. gated mansions and tall fences), but the ones who aren’t tech-literate (i.e. non tech bros) are likely the same as everyone else, and are probably even worse off than privacy-conscious regular people. I remember Zuck uses Signal, so we know at least the tech bros who are technically literate (and not the ones who only pretend to know what they’re talking about) are aware of their personal privacy.
Seconding this.
Everyone uses smartphones. But to supplement the other good answers here, at some level of wealth, so much of your activities, interests and purchases are extended to secretaries, planners, asset managers, and otherwise individuals about whom you can claim “I’ve got a guy for that”, that tracking you as an individual becomes less effective.
Of course, nobody is immune just due to wealth and billionaires who use social media are tracked just like anyone else.
Lawyers. They have tons of lawyers.
I think if money has no value to you anymore (billionaires), you employ a company to sue anyone who collects even trace amounts of your data. Think largest and most expensive law firm calling you as ceo of the data collection agency and asks if the wife knows about his tendencies.
Watch the series revenge to get a somewhat good idea of ultrawealthy life.
I don’t think they do, honestly. Being rich does not necessarily mean being smart
And those who pay for not being brought up on the lists of most rich, probably don’t use tech themselves
Their wealth comes from stocks, bonds and land, not an account that can be hacked. Their safety against kidnapping for ransom comes from being pals with most of politicians and/or having clout in the right circles to help any politician that will ping high enough to be allowed to get an appointment
If there’s public information about the methods they use to protect their privacy, then those methods aren’t working.
Other than what’s been answered they can afford cybersecurity consulting firms too.
