Parents Need To Be Aware Of New Law As FBI Warns About Doxxing In Illinois

Over the last year the FBI has made multiple statements about doxing. Just recently the FBI took to X (formerly Twitter) To warn about this growing issue. While anyone can be a target, the FBI went into deeper detail on people who are targeted more often. Stating,

especially LGBTQ+ youth, racial minorities, and those who struggle with a variety of mental health issues, such as depression and suicidal ideation

Two Massive issues online are doxxing and swatting.

What Is Doxxing

In short, doxxing is the result of someone leaking all your private info onto the internet for others to see. The full answer is as follows,

Doxxing (also spelled “doxing”) is the act of revealing someone’s personal information online. Doxxing is a form of online harassment that means publicly exposing someone’s real name, address, job, or other identifying info without a victim’s consent. The aim of doxxing is to humiliate, bully, harass, or otherwise harm a victim.

What Is Swatting 

In short, Swatting is using info gathered about you to make a fake police call claiming something bad is happening at the location you are currently at. The full answer is as follows,

Swatting is a criminal harassment act of deceiving an emergency service (via such means as hoaxing an emergency services dispatcher) into sending a police or emergency service response team to another person's address. This is triggered by false reporting of a serious law enforcement emergency, such as a bomb threat, murder, hostage situation, or a false report of a mental health emergency, such as reporting that a person is allegedly suicidal or homicidal and may or may not be armed, among other things

Obviously, swatting was already illegal.

Doxing Is Illegal In Illinois

Thankful This is punishable by law in Illinois. New reports state that If you or a family member are affected by this actions can be taken.

The Civil Liability for Doxxing Act (Public Act 103-0439) is a new anti-doxxing law recently passed in Illinois. While Governor Pritzker signed and approved the bill on August 4th, 2023, the law will not go into effect until January 1, 2024. The law allows doxing victims to take civil action against their attacker to recover damages. To take civil action, the following should be true:

An individual intentionally publishes another person’s information without consent.
The person whose information is published can, in fact, be identified by that information.
The person posting personally identifying information does so with the intent to harass or cause harm and knows (or recklessly disregards) that the person whose information is published may suffer harm as outlined in the act.
The published information causes a person to suffer economic injury; emotional distress; fear of bodily injury or death to oneself and loved ones; or substantial life disruption.

Stay safe!