The Best Gift You Can Give This Year is Privacy (Because AI is Getting Creepy)

It is December 23, 2025. The halls are decked, the shipping deadlines have passed, and we are right on the precipice of a new year. Usually, this is the time I tell you to grab that last-minute smart home hub or the VR headset that everyone is talking about.

But the headlines this week stopped me in my tracks.

Recent reports have surfaced showing that major AI chatbots—the ones from the big players like Google and OpenAI—are still struggling with safety guardrails. Specifically, users are finding workarounds to take innocent photos of women and use AI to "strip" them, generating realistic, non-consensual deepfakes.

It’s gross. It’s invasive. And frankly, it’s a splash of cold water on the tech-optimism that usually fuels the holiday shopping season.

I’ve reviewed thousands of products, from toasters to terrifyingly smart robots. I love technology. But when the tools we use to organize our lives start weaponizing our likenesses, we need to rethink what we’re bringing into our homes.

If you are looking for a last-minute digital gift or planning how to spend those gift cards you’ll get tomorrow, don’t buy more cameras that connect to the cloud. Buy protection.

Here is my guide to the best privacy-focused tech for the world we actually live in.

The Analog Renaissance: Why Instant Cameras Are Back

If you can’t trust the cloud with your photos, keep them off the cloud.

For years, we’ve looked at instant cameras as cute, retro novelties. In light of the current AI landscape, I’m reclassifying them as security devices. A photo that exists only on a piece of chemical film cannot be scraped, altered, or fed into a dataset unless someone physically steals it from your house.

The Pick: Fujifilm Instax Mini Evo This is the hybrid king. It allows you to preview shots before you print them (saving you money on film), but it captures that gritty, authentic vibe that AI still struggles to replicate perfectly. It’s fun, it’s tactile, and most importantly, the images it spits out are yours. They don't live on a server farm; they live on your fridge.

For the Gen Z recipient on your list who is increasingly wary of their digital footprint, this isn't just a camera—it's a way to document life without feeding the algorithm.

The "Boring" Stocking Stuffer That Matters Most

We need to stop pretending that digital security is just for IT professionals or the tin-foil hat crowd. Identity theft and digital harassment are consumer issues, just like leaking dishwashers or exploding batteries.

If you have friends or family who use the same password for everything (you know who they are), giving them a hardware security key is the ultimate act of love.

The Pick: YubiKey 5 Series I know, a USB stick doesn't scream "Happy Holidays." But hear me out. The YubiKey requires you to physically touch the device to log into your accounts. Even if a hacker—or a bot—gets your password, they can’t get into your email or photo backup without physically holding this key.

It’s about $50, it fits on a keychain, and it creates a physical barrier between a user's digital life and the bad actors trying to access it. Pair this with a high-quality webcam cover (the sliding metal ones, not the cheap stickers) and you’ve given the gift of sleeping better at night.

Scrubbing the Footprint

The report regarding AI stripping software highlights a scary reality: these models need data to work. They need source images. The less of you there is online, the harder it is for these tools to target you.

However, manually deleting yourself from the internet is impossible. Data brokers have bought and sold your info a dozen times since you started reading this article.

The Pick: DeleteMe or Incogni Subscriptions These are services that actively scour the web for your personal information—home addresses, phone numbers, and yes, photos—and petition data brokers to remove them.

I tested DeleteMe earlier this year, and the sheer volume of data they removed was staggering. It’s not a one-time fix; it’s a maintenance service. Gifting a one-year subscription is a thoughtful, high-value gesture. It says, "I care about your safety," which beats a generic scented candle any day of the week.

Offline Storage is Sexy Again

We got too comfortable with "unlimited" cloud storage. We dumped our entire camera rolls—beach photos, baby pictures, embarrassing selfies—into the ether, trusting that Big Tech would keep the gates locked. As these recent AI exploits show, the locks aren't always as strong as advertised.

The Pick: Samsung T9 Portable SSD This is for the creative in your life. It’s rugged, fast, and most importantly, it isn't connected to the internet.

Encourage your family to practice the "3-2-1" backup rule, but emphasize the local aspect. Keep your most sensitive, private photos on a drive in a drawer, not on a server sharing resources with an experimental chatbot. The Samsung T9 is roughly the size of a credit card, drops into a pocket, and keeps terabytes of data air-gapped from the chaos of the web.

The Verdict

I’m not saying we should smash our smartphones and move into the woods. AI does incredible things, and I’m still excited about the legitimate advancements coming in 2026.

But this week’s news is a reminder that as technology gets more aggressive, our boundaries need to get stronger. The best products right now aren't the ones that do more for you; they’re the ones that demand less of your data.

Stay safe, protect your privacy, and have a Happy Holiday. See you in the New Year.