George Clooney and his bride gave burner phones to guests at their wedding

Hollywood actor George Clooney and his bride giving burner phones to guests

Hollywood actor George Clooney got hitched with to London based barrister Amal Alamuddin on 27th September, 2014 in Venice.  Despite this being one of a biggest days in his personal life, he was probably more worried about the latest Hollywood celebrities images #iCloud Hacks doing rounds on the internet.   The iCloud Hacks leaks are already the top trending news the hackers insistence at leaking the images in small batches.

Well, George Clooney and his spouse were not taking any chances with their wedding photos or images in private moments leaked either through accident or by a guest present at wedding.  Particularly when he and Amal Alamuddin had reportedly sold the rights to wedding photographs to American Vogue, in return for the fashion magazine making a contribution to a charity of his choice.

In order to avoid any pilferage, Clooney gave each one of his guest a “burner phone”, the Sunday Telegraph reported.  He also requested the guests to leave their current handsets/tablets or any other electronic instrument in their hotel rooms before proceeding to the 3 day gala event in Venice.

What are Burner phones?

Burner phones aka “burners” are prepaid and disposable phones. A burner phone is basically used by people who would like to remain anonymous because it is a prepaid cellular phone, replaced frequently (weekly) (monthly) to avoid leaving a trail and getting caught up in digital footprint.  These types of phones are shown in Hollywood thrillers where the protagonist uses and throws them at will.

The burner phones are mostly used by people linked to criminal activity or those who are in the espionage world. Law enforcement agents don’t like burners, since they keep users anonymous.  They rely on prepaid SIM cards for connections and these SIM cards are available in shops where you dont need to register them in some countries or at a premium in others. You can also buy top-ups for them from any roadside vendor without leaving any trace.

The Sunday Telegraph claims to have obtained part of the document sent by George Clooney to his guests at the big event. The burners were apparently tickets to the gala event.

The phones you’ve been given have a code. That is your ticket to everything. We will be taking lots of pictures… but we have to work very hard to keep our pictures our pictures.

Clooney’s decision to give out burner phones was possibly done to avoid not only intentional leakage of wedding photos, but also to protect the photos from getting chiseled out of his guests’ cloud accounts by cyber thieves.

So much for a wedding, so much for privacy and so much for fun!