Óscar Puente praises doxing, a practice that INCIBE encourages to report to the Police

Pedro Sánchez's government has been displaying authoritarian attitudes for years, and these are increasingly widespread, including on the internet.

Pedro Sánchez attacks the right to privacy and compares using a social network with buying a gun
Sánchez, his mafia-like exercise of power and the silence of a large part of journalism

In recent hours, and while his Ministry faces a serious scandal for hiring prostitutes and placing an ex-partner of the former minister in public companies in which she was earning a salary without working, the Minister of Transport, Óscar Puente, has chosen the most crude and toxic way to conduct a distraction campaign.

Puente praises an anonymous user who reveals other people's personal data

This Saturday, the minister shared a post from an anonymous leftist account that is dedicated to revealing names and other personal data of anonymous users, without their consent, a practice that some have been carrying out for years on that social network and that has the purpose of exposing them to possible reprisals.

In a message published this Sunday, after one of the users who saw their personal data exposed closed their account for fear of retaliation, Puente justified what happened by stating:

He closed the account because he wanted to. No one censored anything. If your opinions embarrass you, the problem isn't a lack of freedom, but rather your opinions, which you know the vast majority of society rejects. Cowardly, whiny far-right.

INCIBE points out that doxing is a cyberbullying practice

It's scandalous that a minister would publish a message like this from an institutional account (Puente's profile displays the gray logo that Twitter assigns to public officials). But even more so is the fact of seeing a minister cheering on doxihg, a practice that the National Cybersecurity Institute (INCIBE) defines as follows:

Doxing is the practice of revealing a person's personal information online without their consent.

In an infographic on "doxing", INCIBE encourages people to report this practice to law enforcement agencies. This official institution shows what this practice entails and poses the following question: "What could happen to you if someone doxes you?" The answer is summarized in five points:

• "It damages your online reputation."
• "Harassment or extortion."
• "Identity theft."
• "It exposes you to fraud and other online threats."
• "It endangers your physical safety."

In 2020, INCIBE warned against "doxing" in an article on "new forms of cyberbullying", pointing it out as a practice that is usually experienced by minors who suffer extortion as a result.

INCIBE depends on the government of which Puente is a part

It should be noted that INCIBE is a public entity dependent on the Ministry of Digital Transformation, that is, the same government to which Óscar Puente belongs.

UN Women and BBVA have also warned against these practices.

INCIBE is not the only institution that has warned against this practice. In June 2024, UN Women cited "doxing" as a form of "violence against women".

From the private sector, one of Spain's leading financial institutions, BBVA, has warned against "doxing" by stating:

The purpose of this fraudulent practice may be cyberbullying, extortion, or coercion. In addition, criminals may also use the information to access victims' social media profiles and impersonate them.

In January, Sánchez announced that he wanted to eliminate the right to anonymity on the Internet

It is scandalous to see a minister cheering on these practices, but we were warned. As you may recall, in January Pedro Sánchez announced his intention to end the right to anonymity on social media, justifying this serious attack on the right to privacy by comparing buying a gun with using a social network to express an opinion or disseminate information. Seeing Óscar Puente's behavior in recent hours, we can now get an idea of ​​what the government intends to unleash with this attack on privacy.

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Photo: La Moncloa. Spain's Minister of Transport, socialist Óscar Puente.