The Delhi High Court recently ordered social media platform X (formerly Twitter) to take down content revealing private and professional details of a woman, but ruled that the case was not related to doxxing as the information was available in public.
Doxxing or doxing has not been defined in the Indian law, nor has it been made a statutory offence in India.
What is Doxxing?
Doxxing is the revelation of a person’s private information online without their consent, often with malicious intent, according to the International Encyclopedia of Gender, Media, and Communication.
It includes sharing of phone numbers, home addresses, identification numbers and essentially any sensitive and previously private information such as personal photos that could make the victim identifiable and potentially exposed to further harassment, humiliation and real-life threats including stalking and unwanted encounters in person.
The word ‘doxxing’ is derived from the phrase “dropping documents”. The verb ‘doxxing’ refers to the practice used by hackers to find someone’s personal information, and posting it online. The word was popularised by the hacker collective Anonymous.
What are the Methods of Doxxing and How to Stop It?
Doxxers collect information through IP address, social media profiles, buy data from brokers, phishing campaigns, and even intercept internet traffic.
One should document the evidence to report it to the police, or cybercrime officials or social media platforms such as Facebook or X.
Facebook’s parent company Meta does not explicitly use the term “doxxing” in its privacy violations policy, but it said it considers users sharing “personally identifiable information” about others a violation of its community standards, according to a report by CNN.
X (Twitter), however, allows users to report about doxxing. The first violation of disseminating private information or media on X will get your account locked and you’ll be asked to remove the information/media. On the second violation, you will face a permanent suspension. Those accounts devoted to disseminating somebody’s live location will be automatically suspended.
Lockdown your account or consider changing the number is another option.
Is There a Law in India for It?
Although there is no law in place to prevent and/or punish doxxing directly in India, but there are laws in place against voyeurism (Section 354C IPC and IT Act), divulging sexually explicit content (The IT Act) and obscene content (Section 292 IPC), defamation (Section 499 IPC) and online stalking (Section 354D IPC).
The Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Act, 2023, which is made to protect the data privacy of citizens, specifically mentions not applying to “personal data that is made or caused to be made publicly available.”
But if you are affected by doxxing then register a complaint at your nearest cybercrime police station or register an online complaint on cybercrime.gov.in anonymously or report about it to the social media account help center.
Are Women More Affected Than Men?
A 2020 report by UN Women focusing on India, Malaysia, Pakistan, the Philippines, and South Korea found that women experience many forms of online violence simultaneously such as trolling, doxxing and social media hacks.
A 2020 global report by The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) found that online violence against women is startlingly prevalent in the 51 countries surveyed, with 45% of Generation Z and Millennial women reporting being affected, compared to 31% of Generation X women and Baby Boomers, while 85% of women surveyed overall report witnessing online violence against women. While online violence is alarmingly common globally, the study shows significant regional differences, with Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, and the Middle East showing at least 90% of women surveyed having been affected.