What Is Doxxing, and How Can Educators Protect Their Privacy Online? Education Week
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The education profession relies on teachers being accessible to their students and families and open to sharing with colleagues. But a little information can be a dangerous thing.
For one former middle school art teacher in Baltimore County, it started with a group of students Zoom-bombing her class. But when a home address linked to her family became public, she said pranks escalated to falsely calling emergency services, commonly called “SWATing.”
“My poor 60-year-old parents were woken up to a full SWAT team in the middle of the night,” she said. “Thankfully, nobody was hurt and [the police] quickly realized it was a hoax.”
“When I Googled my name after the incident, the very first site listed my address as my parents’ address,” said the woman, who left teaching in 2022.