Swatting is when an attacker calls 911 claiming a violent incident at your address — typically a hostage situation, active shooter, or bomb threat — to send armed police to your home. It used to be a problem mostly for Twitch streamers and YouTubers. It is now a routine tactic against journalists, anyone who criticizes online groups, and increasingly against ordinary visible-online people.
Real injuries and deaths have resulted. The defenses are practical, free or cheap, and don't require legal authority or technical skill to put in place. Here is the working playbook in 2026.
How a swatting call works
Step by step, the attacker:
- Acquires your home address from a data broker, voter rolls, property records, a leaked email signature, or one of the many other public sources
- Spoofs a phone call to 911 appearing to come from your area
- Reads a scripted scenario — "my wife is tied to a chair and I've got bombs in the windows" is one of the common scripts
- Hangs up or pretends to be cut off
A SWAT team responds within minutes. They are responding to what they believe is an active hostage situation. People answering the door during a swatting response have been shot.
Knowing the mechanism tells you the defenses.
The 12 practical defenses
1. Pre-register with your local PD's non-emergency line
This is by far the highest-impact thing you can do. Call your local police department's non-emergency number (not 911), ask for the watch commander, and explain:
- You are a journalist / public figure / streamer / at-risk individual
- Your address may be targeted for swatting
- Request that your address be flagged as "high swatting risk —
verify before SWAT response"
Most departments will note this in CAD (Computer-Aided Dispatch). On a swatting call against a flagged address, the responding officer is told to call your phone first, treat the call as suspect, and slow the response. Departments that have this in their CAD have a much better track record of de-escalation during real swatting attempts.
This call takes about 15 minutes. Do it today.
2. Scrub your home address from data brokers
The 30 major data brokers publish your name, address history, phone number, and relatives for free or for $1. Removing yourself takes about two hours total. See our Data Broker Removal Status for the full list and opt-out links.
Services like DeleteMe, Privacy Bee, Optery, and Pentester automate this for $10-30/month. The free version of the work is right there.
3. Apply for your state's Confidential Address Program (CAP)
Most US states have a program that lets at-risk individuals (abuse survivors, judges, public officials, journalists in some states) use a confidential substitute address on voter rolls, DMV records, and state databases.
Apply through your state's Secretary of State. Eligibility varies but covers more people than you'd think. Search for "[your state] address confidentiality program."
4. Use a UPS Store / PO box / virtual address for public-tied accounts
Anything that gets published — your blog "about" page, conference bios, GitHub profile, package-delivery confirmation pages, gift registries — should NOT have your home address.
A UPS Store mailbox costs about $250/year and accepts packages, including signature-required deliveries. Earth Class Mail and similar services scan and forward.
5. Consider holding your house in an LLC or trust
This sounds extreme. It's not. A simple single-member LLC purchase removes your personal name from the property deed (the new owner is the LLC). Anyone looking up your name in property records gets nothing. Anyone looking up the LLC gets a registered agent's address, not yours.
This costs ~$500 in legal fees one-time and is straightforward in most states. Worth it for high-visibility individuals.
6. Strip EXIF data before posting photos
Phone photos contain GPS coordinates by default. Posting a photo of your front door, your mailbox number, your kitchen window with the neighborhood visible — all of these can include exact coordinates in the file metadata.
Most major social platforms now strip EXIF automatically; many do not. When in doubt, run photos through an EXIF stripper before posting, or post screenshots of photos instead of the originals.
7. Avoid posting unique exterior features of your home
A swatting attacker who has your name but not your address will look for distinctive house features in your social photos — particular mailbox, painted door, garden statue, anything Googleable. Treat exterior photos like a privacy leak.
8. Tell your immediate neighbors
Tell two or three immediate neighbors that you may be a swatting target. Give them your phone number. Most people will quietly watch out for you once they understand the situation. Neighbors who know your situation can also call police if they see suspicious activity, and can vouch for you during a real response.
9. Have a written "in case of swatting" instruction sheet
Walk through this with everyone in the house. Specifics:
- Who answers the door (one person — not "whoever is closest")
- Hands clearly visible at all times
- No sudden movements
- No phones held up (look like guns at a distance)
- Pets locked in another room before opening
- Specific words to use ("Officer, may I see your badge — this may
be a swatting attempt against my family")
Practice this. The middle of an actual swatting response is not when you want to be figuring out who opens the door.
10. Wired security camera + visible doorbell camera at the front door
A wired (PoE) security camera with local recording stays running even when Wi-Fi or internet is cut, and gives you visual confirmation of who's actually at the door. A visible doorbell camera (Ring, Nest, Eufy) lets you verify "Officer, what agency are you with and what is your badge number?" through the speaker before opening — completely reasonable even during a real police response.
11. Don't use the public phone number for non-public purposes
If your phone number is public (because you're a journalist, public figure, or business owner), use a separate Google Voice or burner number for personal accounts. Public-facing phone numbers are primary inputs to swatting kits — keeping personal accounts on a separate number means the public number being available doesn't chain-leak everything else.
12. Register with the FBI iGuardian portal (if previously swatted)
If you've been swatted before, file an IC3 report at https://www.ic3.gov and request that your address be added to the FBI's swatting watch list. This creates a federal record and forwards your case to the FBI's coordinated swatting unit.
What does NOT work
- Caller-ID blocking and VoIP filtering by your home line. Swatting
calls don't come to your home line; they go to 911.
- Security systems with cellular backup. Useful for break-ins,
irrelevant for swatting.
- Personal armed defense. Drawing a weapon during a SWAT response
is fatal. Mechanical and procedural defenses (above) are what work.
- "Just don't be visible online." Many swatting victims are
ordinary people without large platforms. Visibility is helpful to attackers but not required.
The recovery — if you're swatted
If a SWAT response happens at your home:
- Follow officer commands precisely. Hands up, slow movements, verbal acknowledgment of every instruction. Argue later.
- After the scene is clear, file an IC3 report (https://www.ic3.gov) and a police report with your local PD. Include the dispatch timestamps and any recordings.
- Request your 911 call recording from your local dispatch center under your state's open-records statute. This is your primary evidence.
- Talk to a lawyer about civil action against the swatter if they're identified. Several jurisdictions now have specific swatting statutes with civil-recovery provisions.
Score your exposure
We built a 12-question Swatting Defense Checklist that scores your current posture and tells you which fixes have the highest impact for your situation. Free, in-browser, no sign-up.
Related free tools
12-question posture audit
30 brokers + opt-out templates
- Public IP Exposure Checker — what
your IP reveals about you
- Privacy Score Checker — 12Q
privacy posture across browser, OS, and accounts
Educational only. Swatting is a federal crime in the United States (18 USC 875(c) plus various state statutes). If you have been swatted or believe you are at risk, contact your local police on the non-emergency line first, and file an FBI IC3 report.