WHEN OFFICERS BECOME THE TARGET:
How to Protect
Yourself from
A
fter the fatal shooting of a man by a LAPD police
officer in March, an anonymous person posted the
officer’s private information online. This information
included the officer’s home address, phone number, and
other personal details including his child’s school.
This practice of researching and broadcasting
personally identifiable information about an individual
is referred to as doxing (or doxxing) and is typically
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Doxing
done with malicious intent. The information published
can be anything from home addresses to vehicle
identification to social media accounts. Once an
individual has been exposed through doxing, they may
be targeted for online harassment. Doxing is becoming
enough of a concern that the FBI and the Internet Crime
Complaint Center (IC3) have issued warnings to law
enforcement and public officials.