What Is Doxxing?
Doxxing is publishing a person’s private or identifying information online, such as a home address, phone number, workplace or family details, usually to harass, intimidate or endanger them. The information is often accurate, and often assembled from sources that were each public on their own.
It’s usually assembly, not a leak
Most doxxing doesn’t involve a breach. Someone joins public pieces: a people-search site profile, a property record, a tagged photo, a username reused across sites. That is OSINT used for harm. The skill needed is low, and the sites do much of the work.
What the law says
There is no comprehensive federal anti-doxxing statute in the US. Federal prosecutors use other laws. The cyberstalking statute, 18 U.S.C. § 2261A, needs a course of conduct that causes or is reasonably expected to cause substantial emotional distress. Another, 18 U.S.C. § 119, covers publishing restricted personal information about certain federal officials and similar covered persons.
State law varies. Some states address doxxing directly, such as California’s Penal Code § 653.2, and where no specific statute exists, prosecutors often use stalking or harassment laws.
I would avoid saying “doxxing is illegal” flatly. Publishing accurate, public information is not automatically a crime. It tends to turn on intent, threats and the specific statute.
Where to report
Platforms and search engines have their own rules. Google treats doxxing content as reportable and says it can remove results that aggregate significant personal information with no legitimate purpose, especially when paired with threats. See de-indexing. That removes a search result. It doesn’t remove the post.
How to lower the risk
- Remove the easy sources. Start with the people-search sites and the data brokers behind them.
- Separate your identities. One username, email or phone number across everything is a single thread to pull.
- Check your photos. EXIF metadata can carry GPS coordinates.
- Look at the people around you. Relatives and housemates are in your profile too. The kidnapping article’s section on the family unit makes the point.
- Have a plan for harassment. Save evidence, report it, lock accounts, and tell the people close to you before it reaches them.
How Kidnappers Choose Their Targets walks through how much an attacker can assemble from open sources, with that in mind.
A privacy broker reduces the material a doxxer has to work with. Nothing makes it zero.
Sources
- Cornell Legal Information Institute, Doxxing.
- Google Search Help, Results about you.