Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Cybersecurity topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Committee hears bill to criminalize doxxing of young people
Summary
Delegate Ashanti Martinez presented House Bill 11‑50 to criminalize the intentional distribution of identifying information that leads to harassment when the victim is under age 25.
Delegate Ashanti Martinez presented House Bill 11‑50, titled the Criminal Law — Personal Identifying Information and Images of Individuals Dissemination Act, proposing a new offense to address doxxing and the nonconsensual distribution of personal identifying information when the victim is under age 25.
"This bill seeks to establish clear penalties for individuals who engage in the harmful and increasingly prevalent act of doxxing," Delegate Martinez told the committee, noting recent campus incidents where students’ names and workplaces were exposed online and led to harassment and threats.
Why it matters: witnesses said existing statutes can fail to hold initial distributors accountable. Joyce King of the Maryland State's Attorneys Association and members of campus and survivor advocacy groups described cases where victims suffered death threats, workplace and academic retaliation, and where prosecutors found no statute that neatly fit the distributor’s conduct. CARE Maryland described receiving dozens of intake incidents involving doxxing and cyberbullying.
Scope and First Amendment questions: committee members pressed whether the proposal would chill lawful speech and whether public figures are excluded. Committee members and witnesses discussed intent and age scope; Delegate Martinez said the age cutoff (under 25) was chosen to include college students and young adults whom she considered particularly vulnerable and to focus the bill on that cohort; she said she was open to drafting refinements and to protecting legitimate reporting and political speech.
Casework and law‑enforcement support: the State's Attorneys Association and the Office of the Public Defender social work intern supported the bill as an important tool to address online harms where existing harassment, stalking, and revenge‑porn laws are insufficient. The committee asked about mens rea (intent) language and how the bill would interact with First Amendment protections; sponsor and witnesses said they were open to amendments to ensure constitutional fit.
No formal committee vote was recorded in the transcript; testimony concluded with members requesting follow‑up detail on intent language and scope.
