‘Hunt’ for critics of monarchy: So what does the law say about ‘doxing’?

I was interviewed by the Malay Mail regarding the issue of “doxing”.

“Doxing” or “doxxing”, in my opinion, is the act of harvesting and publication of personal information of a person on the Internet often with the intention to, among others, annoy, harass, humiliate, insult, threaten, intimidate, or punish the identified individual. Such personal information may be publicly available or private information. They include full name, identity card number, pictures, home or work address, contact number and email.

The act of doxing may be as a result of the act of the victim himself. Often the victim was recorded acting negatively (such as video of a road rage) and such record had gone viral on the Internet.

The act of doxing will usually result with emotional distress to the victim as the victim will be subject to annoy, harass, humiliate, insult, threaten or intimidate by that person or other person(s) being influenced to do the same. In some cases, victims of doxing have lost their job, moved out from their place or residence, change their contact details or even assaulted.

Currently, there is no specific law in Malaysia to govern doxing. In the Malay Mail article, I said-

Lawyers polled by Malay Mail conceded that doxing on its own is not a criminal offence, although it could fall under Section 233 of the Communications and Multimedia Act 1998 that handles improper use of network facilities or network service.

However, lawyer Foong Cheng Leong said this is only true if there had been publication of a comment which is obscene, indecent, false, menacing or offensive in character with intent to annoy, abuse, threaten or harass another person.

“Invasion of privacy is also possible but the information leaked must be something of a private nature — not those in the public domain like full name, identification card number and address.

“Tort of harassment is also possible but that must be something of a repeated act of harassment by the same person,” said the chairman of the Kuala Lumpur Bar Information Technology and Publication Committee.

The Malay Mail

Also read Bread & Kaya: Cyberstalking, harassment … and road rage