The Civil Liability for Doxing Act, which takes effect on January 1, 2024, passed after a unanimous vote. It allows victims to recover damages and to request “a temporary restraining order, emergency order of protection, or preliminary or permanent injunction to restrain and prevent the disclosure or continued disclosure of a person’s personally identifiable information or sensitive personal information.”
It’s the first law of its kind in the Midwest, the Daily Herald reported, and is part of a push by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) to pass similar laws at the state and federal levels. ADL’s Midwest regional director, David Goldenberg, told the Daily Herald that ADL has seen doxxing become “over the past few years” an effective way of “weaponizing” the Internet. ADL has helped similar laws pass in Maryland, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington.
Section 10. Doxing. (a) An individual engages in the act of doxing when that individual intentionally publishes another person’s personally identifiable information without the consent of the person whose information is published and: (1) the information is published with the intent that it be used to harm or harass the person whose information is published and with knowledge or reckless disregard that the person whose information is published would be reasonably likely to suffer death, bodily injury, or stalking; and (2) the publishing of the information: (i) causes the person whose information is published to suffer significant economic injury or emotional distress or to fear serious bodily injury or death of the person or a family or household member of the person; or (ii) causes the person whose information is published to suffer a substantial life disruption; and (3) the person whose information is published is identifiable from the published personally identifiable information itself. (b) It is not an offense under this Act for an individual to: (1) provide another person’s personally identifiable information or sensitive personal information in connection with the reporting of criminal activity to an employee of a law enforcement agency or in connection with any lawfully authorized investigative, protective, or intelligence activity of any law enforcement agency or of an intelligence agency of the United States and the person making the report reasonably believes the alleged criminal activity occurred or the existing investigative, protective, or intelligence activity is legitimate; (2) disseminate the personally identifiable information for the purpose of, or in connection with, the reporting of conduct reasonably believed to be unlawful; or (3) provide a person’s personally identifiable information in connection with activity protected under the United States Constitution or the Illinois Constitution pertaining to speech, press, assembly, protest, and petition, as well as the provision of personally identifiable information to the press. © Nothing in this Act shall be construed in any manner to: (1) conflict with Section 230 of Title II of the Communications Act of 1934 (47 U.S.C. 230); (2) conflict with 42 U.S.C. 1983; or (3) prohibit any activity protected under the Constitution of the United States or the Illinois Constitution.
https://www.ilga.gov/legislation/publicacts/fulltext.asp?Name=103-0439