Tom Hardy shared the intense phone policy he uses to maintain his family’s privacy

In 2014, people with phones everywhere were shocked and horrified by a large-scale security breach that leaked hundreds of photos from the private stores of celebrity’s phones, including Jennifer Lawrence, Rihanna, Kate Upton, and Selena Gomez. While pretty much everyone is united in feeling that this was NOT OKAY, obviously, people thrust into the limelight are most at risk for getting hacked — and celebrities like Tom Hardy sadly feel that pressure every day.

Tom — who starred in Mad Max: Fury Road and earned an Oscar nomination for his part in The Revenant — recently shared with the Evening Standard the measures he’s had to take to keep himself and his family safe. It’s so sad that in today’s world, such drastic measures are necessary.

Tom and his wife Charlotte Riley have resorted to using burner phones — the kind that people often jokingly associate with drug dealers and other shady dealings. After a short amount of time, they’ll toss them, and get new ones with new numbers. Seems awfully difficult to keep in touch with anyone, no?

“You just have to bin and burn the phone and start again. We have to go through burners,” Tom said to the Evening Standard. “We’re burning numbers left, right, and center…I’ll burn numbers and then I’ll have private offline servers for my e-mail accounts.”

Even though it sounds like he’s taking the right precautions, Tom’s life sounds, well, kinda scary. It’s not even just his immediate family that’s in danger of being harassed — his parents are also being victimized.

“Everything just gets riddled — it’s my mum, my dad, everyone,” Tom told the Evening Standard. “My mum and dad don’t need to have their photos of stuff gone through or any of their private messages just because people want to find or piece together something maybe prurient or salacious, and even worse take money from people or move things around.”

And before you start to think maybe it’s just paranoia, Tom goes on: “We get hacked all the time…People go on to messengers and try to set up accounts with profiles, or try to get into the phone itself, or they get hold of the number and they start fishing about, and my family as well, anyone I’m related to.”

If only the internet was a safer place…nobody should have to live in constant fear like that.