Someone is sharing my private information or media without my consent

Harassers may sometimes publish information that personally identifies you or exposes aspects of your personal life that you have chosen to keep private. This is sometimes called "doxxing", or "doxing" (a shorthand term for "releasing documents").

The goal of doxxing is to embarrass the target or agitate against them. This can have severe negative effects on your psycho-social well-being, personal safety, relationships, and work.

Doxxing is used to intimidate public figures, journalists, human rights defenders, and activists, but also frequently targets people belonging to sexual minorities or marginalized populations. It is closely related to other forms of online and gendered violence.

The person doxxing you may have obtained your documents from various sources. This could include breaking into your private accounts and devices. But it is also possible that they are exposing and taking out of context information or media you thought you were sharing privately with your friends, partners, acquaintances, or co-workers. In some cases harassers may aggregate publicly-available information about you from social media or public records. Putting this information together in new, harmfully misconstrued ways could constitute doxxing too.

If you have been doxxed, you can use the following questionnaire to identify where the harasser has found your information, and find ways to limit the damage, including removing the documents from websites.