Is Doxxing Illegal In Georgia?

If you live in Georgia and are concerned about your information being shared online, you may be wondering: Is doxxing illegal in Georgia? 

Read on to find out if someone who shares your data without your permission could face criminal charges in the state – and what criminal activities often accompany doxxing.

Is Doxxing Illegal in Georgia?

No. The act of doxxing, which refers to someone publishing your information online without your authorization, is not illegal in Georgia. 

A bill (GA SB182) was introduced in 2023 to amend a stalking law to include doxxing, but it has not yet been made into law.

Doxxing Related Activities That Are Illegal In Georgia 

While there are no specific laws covering doxxing in Georgia at this time, doxxing can lead to other activities that are illegal in the state. This includes stalking, harassment, and unlawful conduct during a 911 call. 

Stalking

Stalking (O.C.G.A. § 16-5-90) is defined in Georgia as someone following, tracking, surveilling, or contacting another person without their permission, with the intent of intimidating or harassing them. 

It includes stalking someone in person as well as stalking them online using a computer or electronic device (cyberstalking). If someone doxxed you, there’s a possibility they may be cyberstalking you as well.

Georgia considers stalking to be a misdemeanor on the first offense, meaning perpetrators could get up to one year in jail and/or face up to a $1,000 fine. Repeat offenders are charged with a felony and are penalized with imprisonment for 1-10 years. 

Harassment

In Georgia, sending someone harassing communications is penalized under state law. 

“Harassing communications” (O.C.G.A. § 16-11-39.1.) is defined as any form of communication (including direct messages, emails, texts, and phone calls) as long as it’s either done repeatedly, includes a threat, or both. It also includes calling someone and then not hanging up the phone, as well as permitting someone else to use your devices for harassment purposes.

Sending harassing communications is a misdemeanor in Georgia, earning perpetrators up to a $1,000 fine and/or a year in jail for each offense.

Unlawful conduct during 911 call 

Doxxing is closely related to swatting, which is calling law enforcement to make a false report to prompt an emergency response against someone. 

In Georgia, making a false report to 9-1-1 is illegal (O.C.G.A. § 16-11-39.2.) and is penalized as a misdemeanor with an associated six months jail time and/or a fine of up to $500. 

Is Doxxing Illegal at the Federal Level?

There is no federal law against doxxing at present in the US, although a growing number of states (such as California, Arizona, and Illinois) are enacting their own doxxing laws. 

There is a significant amount of information on the internet about most individuals, whether from social media pages, public records, or data brokers, making the task of enforcing doxxing laws at the federal level unlikely – although there are a few cases where doxxing has been treated as a federal crime.

With no federal-level protection for most people against doxxing, it’s essential to take your online safety into your own hands and work on becoming as undoxxable as possible. 

How to Protect Yourself Against Doxxing In Georgia (And Elsewhere)

If your goal is to become undoxxable, you’ll need to focus on shrinking your online footprint to remove and obscure your personal details wherever they may appear. 

To get an idea of where your personal data is showing up, you can start by doxxing yourself (find out how in our guide to self-doxxing using these doxxing tools. We also have an Instagram-specific doxxing guide for Instagram users). 

Once you’ve doxxed yourself, you’ll know where your personal data vulnerabilities are, and you can address them one by one. For most people, this will usually involve a combination of the following:

• Make your social media accounts private instead of public, limiting how much information strangers can see about you on your profile. Be sure to remove personal contact details from your public biographies as well.
• Opt out of data brokers. Data brokers are companies that collect and sell your personal information as part of a comprehensive profile about you. You’ll need to opt out of every data broker that has information on you, and you’ll need to repeat the process when your profile gets reactivated (which occurs when data brokers find new data about you online). As an alternative, you can subscribe to a data broker removal service like DeleteMe to handle the opt-out process for you. 
• Create and use unique usernames and passwords on all of your online accounts (to make it harder for cyberstalkers to follow you and hackers to get into your accounts).
• Make a habit of not giving out your personal information online. Remember that once you post something on the internet, it’s there forever – especially given the ability of other users to screenshot what you post and websites like the Wayback Machine and Internet Archive.  

Want to learn more? Read our guide on how to prevent doxxing.