The advent of new technologies has accelerated the way in which information about people is being collected and disseminated at a rapid pace for an extensive range of uses. This means an increased risk of private information being easily accessed and circulated to the public for everyone to see.
Imagine waking up one day only to realise that your name, personal details and private pictures have suddenly been published on various social media platforms, with false allegations made against you on unverified media sites and spiteful hate comments from netizens targeted at you. This was what had happened to an innocent businessman who was wrongfully identified as the Bentley driver that tried to run down a school security guard.
Under the recently amended Protection from Harassment Act (POHA), it is a criminal offence to engage in “doxxing” in Singapore. An act of “doxxing” refers to when an individual or entity publishes personal information of a person or people related to him in order to harass, threaten or facilitate violence against them. Personal information refers to information that can be used to identify a person, such as photographs, videos, contact details, or even information about a person’s employment, education and family.
Let’s consider the following scenarios:
Situation 1: A and B are colleagues. One day A discovers that B has a criminal record and decides to make a post on their company webpage to warn readers of the forum about B’s bad character and criminal proclivities.
The webpage is accessible to everyone who works at the company and all of their colleagues soon finds out about A’s post. B learns about this after one of his co-worker shows him the post and feels very distressed as he believes that everyone in the workplace is now shunning him.
Under POHA, A may be guilty of a doxxing offence for intentionally causing harassment, alarm or distress and be liable on conviction to a fine and / or imprisonment.
Situation 2: A saw B kicking a dog in the middle of the street and filmed this incident. A decides to take things further and follows B home to find out where B is living as he wants to report B to the authorities for animal abuse. Upon discovering B’s home address, A uploads the video footage of the incident as well as B’s address to an online dog lover forum to vent his unhappiness and anger.
A’s video footage is then rapidly shared and circulated across various social media platforms by many disgruntled pet lovers who feel that B should be punished for his actions. Some of them go down to B’s house personally to scold him for what he has done. Netizens even managed to uncover B’s personal phone number and as a result, B has been receiving many hate messages and phone calls threatening to “beat him up” and “kick him like how he’d kicked the poor dog”. Since then, B has not dared to leave his house, fearing that violence might be carried out against him if he ever stepped out.
Under POHA, A, along with any netizens who have shared B’s personal information, may be guilty of a doxxing offence for fear, provocation or facilitation of violence and be liable on conviction to a fine and / or imprisonment.
It should be noted that not every instance of publication of personal information will be considered an offence. If an accused individual can prove that his conduct was reasonable, he could possibly have a defence. Factors such as the nature and context of the offending acts along with their effect on the victim will need to be considered before the court decides on whether or not a person is guilty of an offence under POHA.
For example in Situation 1, if the statements posted by A reflects a high degree of animosity behind A’s conduct that went beyond merely harsh comments or vocal criticisms, the post will be read as a whole constituted personal attack against B on all fronts. If A’s post was driven by his personal agenda, and he harboured bad blood and sought to name and shame while disparaging and denigrating B, that will not be considered as reasonable conduct.
On the other hand, if A’s posts were simply motivated by his desire to protect his own self-interests by raising grievances, for instance to protect himself from workplace harassment and victimization or to defend his professional reputation, his conduct may then be potentially considered reasonable.
In the end, every situation will be different and what amounts to reasonable conduct is heavily fact-specific and dependent on the unique circumstances of each case.
If your personal information has been published and shared online, your civil lawyer will be able to best advise you on whether a doxxing offence has been committed against you and what you should then do next.
