Lisa Nandy has vowed to strengthen the law on “doxxing” after lifeboat volunteers involved in migrant crossing rescues had their personal details published online.
The culture secretary said she would “tighten up the law” to make doxxing, which involves leaking people’s home addresses, a criminal offence.
Currently, she said this kind of behaviour is only illegal if it is done with clear intent to cause fear, harm and distress.
Nandy convened a meeting with social media firms on Tuesday afternoon to discuss such abuse, but she called social media company X a “disgrace” for failing to turn up.
Last week, the chief executive of the RNLI – the Royal National Lifeboat Institute – condemned online and physical abuse volunteers for the charity had received over English Channel migrant crossings.
That followed protests after 120 people landed on Portsmouth’s shores from France with the RNLI’s assistance.
Nandy told BBC Breakfast she was “appalled” that the likes of RNLI volunteers, police officers, social workers and journalists were “being doxxed online” – having their names, photos and addresses published.
In her meeting with social media companies, she said she found “wildly varying standards” from them on doxxing material.
TikTok told her it would automatically remove such posts while Facebook and Instagram owner Meta said it would not, she said.
“And frankly, X didn’t even bother to turn up yesterday which shows real contempt for people’s safety and security and their obligations to society,” she added.
She said the government “will not hesitate to take action” to make clear that “where people’s addresses are being published online, that is an offence and action has to be taken swiftly”.
A source close to Meta said it removes content that shares, offers or solicits personally identifiable information that could lead to physical harm.
It is undersood the Crown Prosecution Service can currently treat doxxing under offences such as malicious communications if a victim is threatened or harassed.
BBC Verify found viral social media posts about those involved in migrant crossing operations, some of which wrongly identified RNLI crew members and called for their families to be tracked down.
The RNLI has said only 109 of its 9,058 lifeboat launches last year were for people “in distress in the Channel” – 1.2% of its total rescue work.
The charity’s chief executive added around 95% of small boats were intercepted by the UK Border Force.
Nandy has also taken aim at “incredibly slow” progress with enforcement of the Online Safety Act, the government’s flagship law to tackle online abuse, as she called for regulator Ofcom to move faster.
Describing the “major challenges” with enforcing the Act, she told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme two penalties had so far been issued to companies but no fines had yet been paid.
Ofcom disputed this, saying it had issued £7m of fines to 11 providers since the Act came into force, some of which had been paid, with work ongoing in “pursuit of debt” for unpaid fines.
