Is Doxxing Illegal In Wyoming?

Residents of Wyoming who are concerned about their online safety might wonder: Is doxxing illegal in Wyoming? 

In this guide, we’ll look at Wyoming’s legal code to determine whether someone sharing your personal information without your permission in the state is illegal – and what penalties the state levies for doxxing-related crimes.

Is Doxxing Illegal in Wyoming?

No. The act of publishing someone else’s information without authorization – also known as doxxing – is not illegal in Wyoming. 

However, there are other activities that can come from doxing that are illegal in the state.

Doxxing Related Activities That Are Illegal in Wyoming

While Wyoming doesn’t have an anti-doxxing law in place, doxing can lead to several criminal activities in the state, including communicating threats, stalking, property destruction, criminal trespass, and more.

Communicating a threat of bodily injury or death

If someone has your phone number or knows where you live, they can threaten, harass, or annoy you by calling or writing to you. 

When that’s the case, they can be charged with a misdemeanor in Wyoming, punishable by up to one year in jail and a fine of up to $1,000 (Wyo. Stat. § 6-6-103). 

Property destruction and defacement

When someone intentionally damages your property (Wyo. Stat. § 6-3-201), they’re facing a misdemeanor in Wyoming if the damage is less than $1,000. The penalty in that case is up to six months in jail and up to a $750 fine.

If the destruction is more than $1,000, the charge becomes a felony with an ensuing punishment of up to 10 years’ imprisonment and a fine of up to $10,000.

Stalking

Stalking occurs when someone engages in repeated harassment, follows you, surveils you, or uses an electronic device to track you. 

In Wyoming, stalking (Wyo. Stat. § 6-2-506) is a misdemeanor punishable by up to one year in jail and a fine of up to $750.

If the victim suffers bodily harm as a result of the stalking, or if it’s in violation of a previous restraining order, the charge goes up to felony stalking with ensuing imprisonment of up to 10 years.

Criminal trespass

Being doxxed can lead to a bad actor finding out where you live and coming onto your property without your permission. 

That’s considered criminal trespass in Wyoming (Wyo. Stat. § 6-3-303), and it’s punishable by up to six months in jail and up to $750 in fines.

Unlawful impersonation through electronic means 

Impersonating someone else using an electronic device and proceeding to cause harm, harass, or deceive others (Wyo. Stat. § 6-3-902) is a misdemeanor punishable by up to one year imprisonment and up to $1,000 in fines in Wyoming.

Unauthorized use of personal identifying information 

If someone uses your personal information to obtain goods or services in your name without your permission (Wyo. Stat. § 6-3-901), it’s charged as a misdemeanor in Wyoming, provided the amount of theft was $1,000 or less. In those cases, the penalty is up to six months in jail and a fine of up to $750.

If the amount stolen was $1,000 or more, the charge escalates to a felony, punishable by up to 10 years’ imprisonment and a fine of up to $10,000.

False reporting to authorities

A crime closely associated with doxxing is swatting, which occurs when someone knowingly makes a false report to emergency officials to prompt an emergency response. 

In Wyoming, false reporting to authorities (Wyo. Stat. § 6-5-210) is a misdemeanor if the offender falsely reports a crime, leading to up to six months imprisonment and up to $750 in fines.

If the offender falsely reports that an emergency is happening, the penalty increases to up to one year in jail and a fine of up to $1,000.

If the report of an emergency also leads to the victim’s injury, the charge becomes a felony, punishable by up to five years in prison and up to $5,000 in fines.

Lastly, if the false report leads to the death of the victim, the charge becomes manslaughter, amounting to up to 20 years’ imprisonment. 

Simple assault

When someone attempts to injure you, they can be found guilty of simple assault in Wyoming (Wyo. Stat. § 6-2-501). That’s a misdemeanor punishable by a fine of up to $750. 

If they succeed in injuring you, it’s considered battery, and they can be punished by up to six months in jail and a fine of up to $750.

Is Doxxing Illegal at the Federal Level?

There is no law against doxxing at the federal level. That’s partly due to the large amount of public data available on the internet. 

However, some states (such as Arizona, California, and Illinois) have created their own anti-doxxing laws to protect their citizens from being doxxed. 

Regardless of where you live, it’s important to take steps to prevent yourself from being doxxed in the first place. Once you’ve been doxxed and the information is published on the internet, it can be hard to remove it. 

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

To make yourself undoxxable, you should focus on shrinking your online footprint as much as possible. 

To get started, begin by doxxing yourself (follow our step-by-step guide on how to self-dox using these doxxing tools). 

It may sound counterintuitive, but doxxing yourself will give you the best idea of where your data is showing up online and what you should do to remove it. 

Once you’ve doxxed yourself, you’ll probably find that you need to take several steps, including:

• Changing your social media privacy settings from public to private.
• Using unique usernames on all of your accounts.
• Removing your data from Google services, including Maps and Search. 
• Opting out of data brokers, which are companies that collect and sell your data. Note that you’ll need to opt out of every major data broker with a profile on you, and you’ll likely need to repeat the process more than once, as data brokers routinely reactive profiles once new data is uncovered. As an alternative, consider subscribing to a data removal service such as DeleteMe to handle opting out for you. 
• Sharing less personal information online.
• Downloading fewer apps and deleting old and unused apps to limit how much of your personal information they’re tracking. 

To find out more, read our guide on how to prevent doxxing.