Doxxing, explained
Doxxing is the exposure or distribution of identifying or sensitive personal information, often with harmful intent.
- The field
- Privacy
- Reading time
- 1 minute
- In this entry
- Meaning · relevance · limits
The meaning
Doxxing is the exposure or distribution of identifying or sensitive personal information, often with harmful intent.
Why it matters
A publication or community should minimise exposed contact details, remove unnecessary metadata and provide a reporting process.
The boundary
A hosting feature alone cannot prevent information from being shared elsewhere or inferred from public records.
Reduce the information available to combine
A public profile, domain-registration record and old document each reveal a small detail about a project operator. Taken together, those details may identify a person who intended to remain private. Review what is public, remove unnecessary personal metadata and establish an abuse response path without claiming that a hidden WHOIS record solves every exposure.
- Inspect images, documents, public profiles and recovery addresses before publishing.
- Prepare reporting and moderation procedures for malicious disclosure of personal information.