What is Doxxing? Understanding the Action, Legal Implications, and How to Protect Yourself.
While you are scrolling through your social media, you must have encountered people who posts information about their cheating ex-boyfriend, their sloppy housemate, or about some food seller who sell unappetizing food. Not just that, their post includes the person’s personal information and also exposing their bad behaviour or services to the public at large. Do you know that such act is known as doxxing and it is now a crime in Malaysia?
What is doxxing? Doxxing refers to an intentional act of revealing an individual’s private identity information online with the purpose of damaging the person’s reputation, harassing, intimidating or to cause fear to the person. Such information may include residential addresses, personal phone numbers, workplaces, humiliating photographs or videos, or any personal data published without consent or knowledge of the owner of the private identity information
In Malaysia, the law on doxxing has been enforced in July 2025 under section 507E of the Malaysian Penal Code. Under this section, it stated that, any person who found guilty of publishing or sharing other’s identity information with the intent to cause harassment, distress, fear, or alarm may face a punishment of up to three years of imprisonment, a fine, or both. This shows that this act is a hostile act causing more harm than good.
If you find yourself as a victim of doxxing, you should take immediate steps to protect yourself. Firstly, of course you should file a police report to initiate an official investigation on the person who posted your identity information maliciously. Other than that, you should as well make a report to the Malaysian Communication and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) regarding the offensive online content published about you. The authority will take the necessary action to deal with the matter. Additionally, as a victim of doxxing, you have the right to pursue civil action against the person who are responsible for doxxing you on the internet.
Everybody deserves to be safe online. We should protect our personal identity information and always be careful when sharing the information. If you have become a victim of doxxing, be brave and seek help from the authority.
Contact us now at admin@nhcolaw.com for further enquiries!
Article Disclaimer: The contents written above and/or in this website do not constitute a legal advice and should not be relied upon by any parties as such. Please reach out to us for further enquiries.