8 October
What happened on this date in privacy, anonymity networks and censorship. Every year on the same date we add a new look back and keep the earlier ones as they were.
2026
Hong Kong's anti-doxxing removal powers
If your personal details are posted online in Hong Kong, you can ask the Office of the Privacy Commissioner for Personal Data to have platforms remove them, including social media platforms based overseas. On 8 October 2021, the Personal Data (Privacy) (Amendment) Ordinance 2021 took effect and made doxxing a criminal offence. The commissioner's announcement said the amendment aimed to combat doxxing acts that intrude on personal data privacy, and the amendment gave the office powers to conduct criminal investigations and issue cessation notices. Before the law passed, the Asia Internet Coalition, whose members include Apple, Facebook and Google, wrote that the possibility of prosecuting local staff would create uncertainty for businesses, as quoted by The Register. Figures the office published show that by the end of 2025 it had issued 2,104 cessation notices to 57 online platforms, with an overall compliance rate above 96%. The ordinance is Hong Kong law, so if you face doxxing elsewhere, see Doxxing prevention and incident response, published on 3 October.
Also on this day
- Japan's justice minister asked the Legislative Council to consider criminal law measures against organised crime, including a system for intercepting telephone and other telecommunications with a judge's warrant. Source: Ministry of Justice (Japan)
- Germany's Chaos Computer Club (CCC) published an analysis showing that interception malware used by German police could receive and remotely run arbitrary programs from the internet. Source: Chaos Computer Club
- The operator of South Korea's KakaoTalk messaging app announced it would add an end-to-end encrypted privacy mode by the end of the year, and from that day cut how long its servers kept conversations to two or three days. Source: Business Watch