States crack down on doxxing, but there's still no federal law.

The Civil Liability for Doxing Act, which takes effect on January 1, 2024, passed after a unanimous vote. It allows victims to recover damages and to request “a temporary restraining order, emergency order of protection, or preliminary or permanent injunction to restrain and prevent the disclosure or continued disclosure of a person’s personally identifiable information or sensitive personal information.”

It’s the first law of its kind in the Midwest, the Daily Herald reported, and is part of a push by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) to pass similar laws at the state and federal levels. ADL’s Midwest regional director, David Goldenberg, told the Daily Herald that ADL has seen doxxing become “over the past few years” an effective way of “weaponizing” the Internet. ADL has helped similar laws pass in Maryland, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington.

    • SkepticElliptic@beehaw.org
      8·
      1 year ago

      According to my reading I believe it will make third party licence plate camera collection more limited. It should hopefully prevent states with abortion bans from accessing information about license plates that come into Illinois for the purpose of prosecution since that information would cause those people harm and they have a right to abortion in Illinois.

      • astraeus@programming.dev
        1·
        1 year ago

        The law states “individual” not sure if this applies to the government disseminating personally identifying information to other governments.

        • SkepticElliptic@beehaw.org
          1·
          1 year ago

          Ah, you see, in order to get around the 4th amendment there are companies that lease license plate cameras to the government, the government then pays a subscription to that company in order to access the collected data.

          Any other subscribing agency can look at the data, including local police in Texas.

          It wouldn’t be legal for the government to track you like that without a warrant.

          The law states that it’s not illegal for one to give information to any law enforcement agency, however what people do in Illinois is their own business.

          • astraeus@programming.dev
            1·
            1 year ago

            Don’t get me wrong, I agree that it’s overreach for the government to collect and distribute people’s data like that. I’m just not sure the law, in its wording, actually provisions the protection you are hoping it does.

    • FIash Mob #5678@beehaw.org
      3·
      1 year ago

      Agreed.

      It wasn’t that long ago that Spike Lee tweeted out the address of the wrong George Zimmerman and sent an elderly couple fleeing for their lives from their home. There need to be real consequences for this.