Creating Legal Privacy

Legal privacy for financial matters is a scarce and valuable commodity. As we have discussed, developments in technology now allow powerful search engines to sort through billions of records stored in vast interconnected databases. These programs are capable of locating and assembling disparate facts about your life into a comprehensive personal information report with detailed background, credit, employment, and financial information. The ready availability of bank and brokerage account balances and real estate ownership provides a potential adversary with an accurate picture of sensitive personal matters that you would choose not to disclose.

It is possible and advisable to limit the availability of certain types of financial information about yourself. Although a variety of regulatory and reporting requirements create obstacles, the ownership of assets can be shielded from public disclosure. As long as taxes are paid on the income earned and the techniques are not used to conceal the proceeds of criminal activities, anonymous ownership can be legal and effective. Dangers associated with predatory lawsuits and threats from potential adversaries can be successfully combated by adopting strategies which defeat the information gathering processes. The success of a strategy to keep your financial assets secret depends upon the same premise as the rest of your secrets in life. The fewer people that know something about you—the better. And those few people who know should be very good at keeping it to themselves.