Jun 29, 2021 | HONG KONG : New Doxxing offence

HONG KONG : New Doxxing offence

After the government discussion paper to combat doxxing acts was published over a year ago, the Personal Data (Privacy) (Amendment) Bill 2021 was gazetted on 16 July 2021 and is expected to be enacted by end of 2021. The Bill provides new provisions to combat doxing acts by regulating them criminal offences though nowhere in the Bill have mentioned the word “doxxing”. The new provisions read as follows-

“A person commits an offence if the person discloses any personal data of a data subject without the data subject’s consent,
(a) with an intent to threaten, intimidate or harass the data subject or any immediate family member, or being reckless as to whether the data subject or any immediate family member would be threatened, intimidated or harassed; or
(b) with an intent to cause psychological harm to the data subject or any immediate family member, or being reckless as to whether psychological harm would be caused to the data subject or any immediate family member;

Proposed maximum penalty for the new doxxing offence is a fine of HK$1 million (approx. US$130K) and imprisonment for 5 years.