Doxxing Victims in India: A Patchwork of Legal Remedies

Women who participated in protests at Delhi’s Jantar Mantar faced online harassment after social-media accounts circulated their photographs, videos and personal details, including phone numbers and home addresses. Some victims subsequently received rape and death threats.

What is Doxxing?

Doxxing refers to the publication of a person’s private or identifying information online with the intention of intimidating, harassing or shaming them. Despite its serious consequences, doxxing is not expressly defined as a separate criminal offence under Indian law.

Legal Remedies Available

• Section 78, Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita: Applies where disclosed information is used for repeated monitoring, contact or stalking.
• Section 351, BNS: Covers rape, death or other threats amounting to criminal intimidation.
• Section 79, BNS: May apply where published content insults a woman’s modesty or intrudes upon her privacy.
• Criminal Defamation: Can be invoked when the publication harms the victim’s reputation.
• Section 12, POCSO Act: Applies where the victim is a minor and the conduct amounts to sexual harassment.
• Section 66E, IT Act: Criminalises capturing or publishing images of a person’s private body parts without consent.
• Section 72A, IT Act: Penalises unauthorised disclosure of personal information, though its scope and penalties remain limited.

Legal Gaps

The mere publication of personal information may not always attract criminal liability unless accompanied by stalking, intimidation, defamation, sexual harassment or the sharing of intimate images. Consequently, victims often have to rely on multiple provisions of the BNS, IT Act and other laws instead of a specific anti-doxxing law.

Platform Accountability

Under the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, social-media platforms must take reasonable steps to prevent content that invades privacy or harasses individuals on the basis of gender.

• Complaints must generally be acknowledged within 24 hours.
• Complaints should ordinarily be resolved within seven days.
• Content involving intimate images must be removed within 36 hours.
• Non-compliant platforms may lose their safe-harbour protection under Section 79 of the IT Act.

Immediate Measures for Victims- Victims should preserve evidence by recording screenshots, account details, links and URLs of abusive posts and submit complaints to the concerned platform and cybercrime authorities.

Need for Reform- India requires a clearer legal definition of doxxing, stronger criminal penalties for malicious disclosure of personal data, uniform grievance-redressal standards and greater accountability of digital platforms.