Ideal results in HK’s doxxing crackdown, says privacy watchdog

Hong Kong’s privacy watchdog has revealed impressive numbers regarding the city’s doxxing crackdown, since the anti-doxxing law came into effect three years ago.

Privacy Commissioner Ada Chung told a radio program Saturday morning that her office handled over 3,200 doxxing cases in the last three years and issued over 2,000 cessation notices to 47 online platforms to request the removal of doxxing messages, with a compliance rate of over 96 percent.

Other than individual doxxing messages, 250 doxxing channels were also successfully removed by the cessation notices. 

She said the Office of the Privacy Commissioner for Personal Data initiated 363 criminal investigations in the same period, resulting in the arrest of 62 individuals, with 28 of them convicted of doxxing offenses.

Notably, the first nine months of this year saw a significant drop of 90 percent in online doxxing messages compared to the same period in 2022, with a nearly 40 percent decrease in complaint cases.

Chung believed the current penalties for doxxing are sufficient and do not require further escalation.