“Doxing” is the name given to the perfidious ploy to expose others online by publishing private data and fake information. This often happens to women. Research by the police and law enforcement are overwhelmed Y collective.
In the middle of the night, Janna’s cell phone is flooded with messages from strangers. A short time later the doorbell rings at her apartment door: there are strangers there who want to party at Janna’s house.
The Berlin woman has become a victim of “doxing”: an unknown person spread Janna’s address and telephone number via the Telegram messenger service and invited her to a supposed party – apparently in order to deliberately scare her. The plan works because Janna suddenly feels threatened in her own apartment, panics and barricades herself in her bedroom.
When she went to the police the next day and filed a report, the case was dropped shortly afterwards. The Berlin public prosecutor’s office wrote that it cannot be expected that the Telegram messenger would provide the necessary data to identify the perpetrator.
Low clearance rate
Although “doxing”, i.e. the dangerous dissemination of personal data, has been a punishable offense since 2019, perpetrators rarely face consequences. Of all crimes recorded on the Internet, only 29 percent were solved, according to the police crime statistics from 2022. In the analog world, however, the clearance rate is more than twice as high.
Digital investigations are challenging because the traces are sometimes particularly fleeting, explains Dirk Kunze, head of cybercrime investigations at the North Rhine-Westphalia State Criminal Police Office. Since personal data such as the IP address is deleted by telecommunications providers in Germany after seven days, investigative authorities in particular have to act particularly quickly in such cases. Queries of user data on messenger services such as Telegram should not necessarily depend on the chances of success, recommends Kunze.
Legislative proposals already under criticism
The “law against digital violence”, which is already mentioned in the 2021 coalition agreement, is actually intended to make investigations on the Internet easier. The key issues paper from the Federal Ministry of Justice under FDP politician Marco Buschmann, for example, considers “freezing” personal data if there is suspicion of a crime. However, such considerations are criticized by data protection advocates who see them as a threat to freedom of expression.
The organization “HateAid”, which advocates for those affected by digital violence, also criticizes the Ministry of Justice’s key issues paper and, above all, calls for the procedures for digital violence to be accelerated. At a protest in front of the Reichstag building in November 2023, “HateAid” also complained that those affected were faced with enormous hurdles by criminal prosecution, for example due to a high financial risk for plaintiffs in the course of civil proceedings. But there is also a lack of awareness of digital violence in police departments, according to “HateAid”.
Investigation success is a state matter
The research of the Y collective show that there are differences, especially from federal state to federal state, in how crimes are dealt with in the digital space. With Teresa Ott at the Munich Public Prosecutor’s Office, Bavaria is the first federal state to have a hate speech officer who only deals with criminal prosecution in this area. There are now officers at every police station in Bavaria who are trained to deal with online hate crime, said Ott.
Nevertheless, Ott asks in an interview with the Y collective for indulgence: “There’s a lot to do, and I can see the problems too.” Not everything can be changed from one day to the next, as law enforcement lacks experience when it comes to new laws, said the hate speech officer.
The managing directors of “HateAid”, Josephine Ballon and Anna-Lena von Hodenberg, present their campaign in front of the Bundestag together with the SPD politician Sawsan Chebli.
Mild punishments for perpetrators
In the course of the research, a former “doxer” who spread intimate images and private data of a woman on a relevant platform also came forward – this is proven by court documents Y collective present. He reports on a scene from “Doxers” that is soaked in misogyny.
In an interview with the Y collective he judges his sentence to be too lenient. The operators of the forum in which he shared private data distanced themselves from their users when asked. However, women’s private data continues to be shared there.
Advertisements can be an important tool
Janna, whose address and cell phone number were distributed via Telegram, had hoped for more from her police report. For weeks she struggled with the consequences of “doxing” and no longer felt safe in her own apartment.
Despite such negative experiences with investigative authorities, it is important to file a complaint, explains “HateAid”. This is the only way that cases of digital violence are included in the crime statistics. And authorities are being further sensitized to crimes on the internet.
The entire documentation “Naked on the Internet – lies, hatred and data theft” by the Y-Kollektiv is available in the ARD media library.