The RTD Executive Board Doxed Me During Public Comment Retaliation or Ignorance? Did Past Public Commentators get Doxxed like me?

Help me find out! My complete un-edited phone number was displayed on the live stream screen.

Francisco E. Soto

1/27/20267 min read

Definition of Doxxing: is the act of researching & publicly sharing private or identifying information about an individual or organization without their consent, typically with malicious intent. The term originates from the slang phrase "dropping dox," short for "documents," which emerged in 1990s hacker culture to describe exposing someone’s real identity to retaliate against or harass them.

On January 22 2026 at 12:00 pm MST I logged in to the zoom meeting on my computer to watch the Executive Board meeting. I was also recording the meeting with screen recording software. The meeting was not showing properly on my browser because I was using a privacy & add blocking browser called BRAVE. I spoke at the meeting by calling in on my personal cell phone so I did not have to worry about complicating the screen recording settings. I did not know before attending that my complete phone number would be displayed on the screen while speaking & that the moderator would say the last 4 digits of my phone number to identify me before I spoke. He could have just asked for my name then identified me by my name. Their was no disclosure or warning that my personal phone number would be exposed & displayed on the main screen. For everyone watching the meeting to see. The only disclosure given was that the meeting was going to be recorded & that you could email the board instead of speak. My opinion is that they do not want people to speak because people who do will criticize them. Common sense should be, not to expose peoples personal phone numbers. The meeting did not show any of the board members personal personal phone numbers. Why would the board members not show their personal phone numbers on Zoom? After 3 minuets of research online I found out that there is a zoom setting to block all phone numbers.

When I spoke at the meeting I did bring it to the boards attention that my phone number was displayed on the screen. Executive board member Patrick O’Keefe from District 5 stated it was a Zoom meeting and that it will display my phone number on the screen. I began to complain about my phone number then Patrick O’Keefe interrupted me telling me that I have to speak about today's agenda subject from the current meeting or previous meeting. Obviously Patrick did not want to address the issue or let people complain about the issue. Patrick did not want to acknowledge that it was an issue. But I was persistent and complained that it was doxxing, harassment & intimidation by the Executive Board. That posting phone numbers on the screen was a tactic to avoid criticism & accountability.

Towards the end of the meeting CEO & General Manager Debra A. Johnson stated “The IT Staff who are swift & quick and on the point during the course of this meeting I just wanted to enlighten everyone that a modification has been made relative to any callers that the only digits that will be exposed will be the last 4 digits and we have set the rule that can mask everything else”. Then Patrick stated “Thank you for the quick action That’s uhhh I don't know anything that moves that fast”

All members of the board have to set a hearing to vote for a rule or amendment to be implemented. This did not occur because it was obvious that exposing peoples complete personal phone numbers was wrong, unethical and illegal. What also shocked me in the meeting (off topic) was that the treasurer stated “Id like to request a summary of my director expense account uhhh from last year. I have no idea how much money came out of my account & where I stand. I think that would be interesting.” After the meeting was over I emailed the board complaining why it was an privacy issue, security issue, how to change the settings in ZOOM & how the city of Aurora conducts its public comment. The next day I got an email from the board commission stating that my complete phone number was removed from the recording visually and verbally. That all future meetings would mask participants phone numbers. I looked at the recordings and it was completely removed from the RTD site. But on the YouTube page the moderator stated the last 4 digits of the phone number the first time verbally.

I can only speculate but I believe that RTD Executive board members intentionally Doxxed me. I asked myself the question did they also expose the personal information of people who spoke at public comment in PAST RTD board meetings? From what was recorded and posted on RTD’s YouTube channel. I saw one video showing the first 6 numbers of a woman's phone number on a recorded meeting. Was the remaining last 4 digits exposed during the live meeting? Phone numbers are personal information. First, last names and date of birth is not private, but is public information. I pull public records & if the records office is doing their jobs they will redact phone numbers & addresses. Now this could be ignorance by the executive board. But if they are that stupid, ignorant & incompetent they should not be on the executive board.

So I know for a fact that there is a zoom feature that you can use to NOT expose any part of a persons phone number. Maybe the Executive Board know’s how to use it, but do not want too because they want people to be scared of stating something controversial and doxxing themselves. If someone does not like what you said & have malicious intent. Then they possibly could write your number down & then bad things can happen. I do not know if I am the only person who complained about this personal identifying information leak. After doing a couple minuets of searching online I found a YouTube video that shows how to mask phone numbers on ZOOM. A couple of minuets is all it took for me to learn how to use the zoom setting. Zoom gives you three option’s 1 “Default Masking Pattern “Example: 888 **** 666” Option 2 Mask first five digits Option 3 Mask Everything except last four digits. The default option is to mask all of the numbers with the same number. So that means that someone intentionally changed the setting from the most secure setting that hides all of the numbers to exposing all of the phone numbers. Who was responsible for changing the default setting?

I was the only one who called in to the public comment! Which is sad. They did not need to differentiate me from anyone else because I was the only person who wanted to speak at public comment. I am pretty sure that their was another option to differentiate multiple people who called in, other than identifying them by the last four digits of their phone numbers. Reality is stranger than fiction!

Now I want to give you probable scenarios about what could happen to people who make a public comment with their phone numbers exposed. I hate to put this out their on the internet. But in order for security vulnerabilities to be fixed some must be published publicly.

Scenario #1: An old lady with a disability is complaining about how the platforms are not ADA compliant. She has a hard time getting on the bus or light rail. Their is a lot of ice on the ramps. A malicious person could write down her phone number during the live stream. Call her the next day impersonating an RTD employee. Tell her that RTD takes her complaint seriously and are going to give her a free RTD pass for a year. All she has to do is pay for the shipping fee. The bad person then would ask for her credit card number and billing address. Who wouldn't pay a $5 dollar shipping fee for a year free bus pass.

Scenario #2: A lot of people show up to a public comment meeting online from both sides far left and far right. Their is a very controversial topic that is upsetting people and going viral online. The people who speak at the meeting have their phone numbers shown during public comment. A few bad people from both sides write down the phone numbers and post them on various social media sites. The public speakers get harassing phone calls, threats & even death threats.

Scenario #3: A board member does not like what a person said. The person complains about the board & RTD police discriminating against people. The board member puts the phone number online for people to call and harass. The people who call the phone number do not like the speakers views and opinions. The board member also shares the phone number with RTD police.

This may sound extreme. But I used to live in Albuquerque New Mexico. A TikTok content creator comedian worked at a dry cleaners and took a NM State Police uniform home. He put on the uniform, mocked and made funny videos about New Mexico state police. The police went to his house & arrested him for posting the video’s. The case got dismissed. Currently the TikTok creator is suing under 1st amendment rights and harassment.

Man who sued NM State Police for dismissed charges is expected to get $90K in settlement

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-0nAT2d0KxM

Conclusion & My Opinion

I was the only one who called in to the public comment! Which is sad because these people are doing a horrible job. Nobody is telling the board & holding them accountable. If they are that incompetent, that they are doxxing people who want to engage and make public transportation better. Then the board members need to be to be fired. They should be picking up trash at RTD stations & not on the executive board.

I am going to use Aurora city council as an example. It is not perfect. From watching multiple Aurora City Council board meetings online they use Microsoft Teams & do not show your phone number when calling into city council from a phone when making a public comment. Watch the following video from Aurora City Council YouTube Channel. All of the callers show the same phone number which is the moderators phone number and not the people making a public comment. I do know that Aurora public comments can be extremely controversial, upsetting and at times arguments can take place at meetings between attendees. If their phone numbers were exposed or leaked then it would mean phone harassment & intimidation. If peoples phone numbers were exposed at Aurora city council it would make a lot of people angry.