What Tech Experts Actually Buy to Protect Their Privacy from AI

The sense that AI is quietly watching, recording, and profiting from our everyday lives has moved from a background anxiety to a tangible concern. A recent VICE article captured this mood by reporting on the specific tools and devices that privacy-conscious tech insiders are now purchasing to push back. The response is not about paranoia—it’s about practical defense. Here is what is happening, why it matters, and what you can do with about half an hour and a reasonable budget.

What Happened

According to the VICE report, a growing number of security researchers, engineers, and product managers are adding physical and software privacy layers to their daily setups. The common thread is that they no longer trust that software alone will protect them from AI-driven data collection—whether from cloud-based assistants, browser fingerprinting, or data brokers that feed AI training models.

The hardware purchases are straightforward: webcam covers that slide or click into place, USB data blockers (sometimes called “USB condoms”) that supply power without allowing data transfer, and privacy screens that narrow the viewing angle of a laptop display. Several experts also reported buying dedicated “mic kill switches” for external microphones and even entire laptop models that include hardware-level camera and microphone disconnects.

On the software side, the article notes a shift toward privacy-first browsers such as Brave and hardened versions of Firefox with uBlock Origin. VPNs remain a standard recommendation—but experts are now layering them with tracker blockers and anti-fingerprinting extensions. Encrypted messaging (Signal, not WhatsApp) is increasingly considered non-negotiable. And a newer category is emerging: services that block AI crawlers from scraping your public data and opt-out tools that help remove your information from data broker databases that supply AI training sets.

Why It Matters

The immediate trigger is the rapid expansion of AI systems that ingest massive amounts of personal data—conversations, browsing habits, location logs, even your face on a video call. The Pew Research Center’s “New Normal” study noted that experts expect technology to become even more embedded in daily life by 2030, which implies the data collection will only intensify.

But beyond the abstract, the consequences are concrete. AI models have been used to impersonate people, to generate convincing phishing emails, and to build detailed profiles without consent. The market for that data is large and lightly regulated. Buying a five-dollar camera cover or a privacy screen stops a surprising number of attacks—the ones that rely on lazy surveillance—while raising the bar for the more sophisticated ones.

What Readers Can Do

You do not need to become a security expert or spend hundreds of dollars. The following steps are what many tech workers themselves do and can be completed in under 30 minutes:

  1. Cover your camera. A slide cover (built into some laptops) or a simple stick-on cover costs under $10. It blocks the most obvious AI surveillance vector.
  2. Use a privacy-focused browser. Install Brave or Firefox and add uBlock Origin. Disable third-party cookies and enable fingerprinting protection in the browser settings.
  3. Install a tracker blocker. Extensions like Privacy Badger or uBlock Origin itself reduce the number of data points AI crawlers can collect as you browse.
  4. Get a VPN. A reputable, no-logs VPN (like Mullvad or IVPN) encrypts your internet traffic and hides your IP address from AI crawlers and data brokers. Expect to pay about $5–10 per month.
  5. Switch your messaging app to Signal. It is free, open-source, and end-to-end encrypted by default. Many tech experts now treat SMS as insecure and avoid WhatsApp due to Meta’s data-sharing policies.
  6. Consider a USB data blocker. If you charge your phone at public stations or use unfamiliar ports, a $7 power-only adapter prevents data transfer.
  7. Opt out of major data brokers. Services like DeleteMe or manual opt-outs from sites like Spokeo take some time but reduce the data available for AI training on you.

None of these tools is a silver bullet. A motivated opponent with resources can bypass most of them. But for the everyday risk of AI scraping, ad profiling, and casual surveillance, these layers are what the people who know the most about the threats are actually buying.

Sources

  • VICE. “AI Is Getting Creepy—Here’s What Tech Experts Are Buying to Stay Private.” April 2026. Link
  • Pew Research Center. “Experts Say the ‘New Normal’ in 2025 Will Be Far More Tech-Driven.” February 2021. Link
  • Pew Research Center. “Improvements Ahead: How Humans and AI Might Evolve Together in the Next Decade.” December 2018. Link