Doxxing
In plain terms
Someone gathers and publishes your personal information — address, employer, phone number, your children's school — so that others can use it against you. Each piece was accessible on its own; it's their being brought together that is the attack.
Definition
Doxxing is the collection and publication of information that identifies or locates a person in the real world, aimed at exposing them to retaliation, harassment, or physical intrusion.
How it works
No information is stolen: it's cross-referenced. A username reused across two sites, a photograph whose background places a neighborhood, a review left on a business, a professional profile, a public business registry, an old listing — taken individually, these elements say nothing. Put together, they give a name, an address, and habits. Publishing that combination is the turning point: it turns scattered exposure into a target, and hands off the action to others, which makes the original author hard to hold accountable. Doxxing frequently precedes a harassment raid or a malicious report to emergency services.
Warning signs
- Persistent questions about where you live, your employer, or your schedule
- Your personal information appearing in a discussion thread or a forum
- Unsolicited calls, mail, or deliveries at your home
- Contact from strangers mentioning accurate private details
- Old usernames or forgotten accounts named publicly
How to verify
Search your name, your usernames, and your phone number the way a third party would, including a reverse image search. What you find is what the attacker has. Check in particular old accounts, public registries tied to a professional activity, and photographs with an identifiable background.
What to do
Preserve the evidence before reporting anything, then request removal from each platform and, where relevant, delisting from search engines. Warn anyone named alongside you, especially if children are involved. If a physical threat is made, filing a police report takes priority over removal.
If it already happened
File a police report, bringing all the screenshots: publishing personal data for the purpose of harm is a criminal offense in France. Notify your employer or institution if a work address was published. Strengthen two-factor authentication on your accounts, since published information is often used to answer account-recovery security questions. In case of a direct threat, call emergency services (17 in France).
Frequently asked questions
- This information was already public. Is this really an offense?
- Yes. What's at issue is not the accessibility of each individual piece but their being gathered and published with the intent to expose a person. French law targets this malicious compilation, regardless of where the data came from.
- How can I limit what can be found about me?
- Keep usernames separate between uses, remove old unused accounts, check the metadata and background of published photographs, and exercise your right to object with directories and data aggregators. This reduces the exposure without ever eliminating it: total absence isn't an achievable goal.
Related attacks
Official sources
Also known as: disclosure of personal data, doxing, digital exposure.
This article is part of the Blackmail, harassment and personal harm family. Last updated: 2026-09-02.