\n<\/p>\n
The Domestic Abuse Act fails to fully recognise the danger of technology-facilitated abuse, such as location tracking or hidden stalkerware, a Lords select committee has heard.<\/p>\n
Tech abuse has become \u201cincreasingly prevalent\u201d and \u201cvery commonplace now within a domestic abuse context\u201d, said Jen Reed, the head of policy at University College London\u2019s Gender and Tech Research Lab, during an evidence session.<\/p>\n
Technology-facilitated abuse, or tech abuse, is the use of digital devices and platforms to harass, stalk, monitor, control and abuse an individual.<\/p>\n
Reed called for the inclusion of tech abuse in the statutory definition of domestic abuse. She said: \u201cTech abuse is just as devastating as physical abuse. The effects that we see on individuals, I cannot overstate enough how horrendous some of the cases are that we see.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe see stalkerware and spyware installed on people\u2019s phones. We see a lot of [Apple] AirTags and tracking devices being sewn into children\u2019s belongings or clothes during visitation orders, so that the child can be tracked back to their refuge.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve seen smart fridges used to stop people from being able to eat or to access food while they\u2019re at home. We\u2019ve seen smart speakers \u2013 when a perpetrator has gone to work \u2013 accessed remotely to blast a wedding song or something else triggering through every speaker in the home.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Domestic Abuse Act 2021 created a statutory definition of domestic abuse that encompassed physical or sexual abuse, violent or threatening behaviour, coercive and controlling behaviour, economic abuse, and psychological or emotional abuse. While tech abuse is not mentioned, cases would typically fall under the category of coercive and controlling behaviour \u2013 although there is room for cases to fall between the cracks.<\/p>\n
The cybersecurity company Kaspersky released a report into tech abuse on Tuesday, which found 45% of its respondents globally had experienced tech abuse in the past 12 months.<\/p>\n
Tech abuse was explicitly included in the statutory guidance for the act in July 2022. However, Reed told the committee the lack of reference to tech abuse now meant it was \u201coften treated as a peripheral or siloed issue\u201d.<\/p>\n
While tech was \u201cmassively used for coercive control\u201d, Reed said, this form of abuse was still \u201cbeing treated at the moment as an online safety issue, because it\u2019s not within that main definition. And that\u2019s what\u2019s influencing how frontline services interpret this and whether they see it as core and central to domestic abuse\u201d.<\/p>\n
Reed told the committee tech abuse has become increasingly normalised, particularly for young people. \u201cWe\u2019ve got parents who increasingly [monitor] the location of their children for safety. And then you go into your first intimate partner relationship and you think it\u2019s completely normal to be tracked.\u201d<\/p>\n
A UK-wide poll by Refuge in March found that young people were less likely to spot the signs of abuse than other age groups. However, a study by the Youth Endowment Fund found 19% of the teenagers surveyed said their partners had tracked their phone, and 14% for their location.<\/p>\n
Reed said: \u201cI think one of the downfalls [of the act] is that we didn\u2019t necessarily recognise how much tech would actually change intimate relationships and particularly young people have suffered from that. There is an increase in the normalisation of these kinds of behaviours. People are thinking it\u2019s normal to track your partner\u2019s location, to have the passwords to their phone, to have this complete lack of digital divide.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut when that becomes quite extreme, and you have got an abusive relationship, that\u2019s obviously quite dangerous.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Domestic Abuse Act fails to fully recognise the danger of technology-facilitated abuse, such as location tracking or hidden stalkerware, a Lords select committee has heard. Tech abuse has become \u201cincreasingly prevalent\u201d and \u201cvery commonplace now within a domestic abuse context\u201d, said Jen Reed, the head of policy at University College London\u2019s Gender and Tech<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":49636,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[682,3052,1066,1386,6325,175,12835,1186,5799,812,2315],"class_list":{"0":"post-49635","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-crime-justice","8":"tag-abuse","9":"tag-committee","10":"tag-danger","11":"tag-domestic","12":"tag-fails","13":"tag-law","14":"tag-lords","15":"tag-online","16":"tag-recognise","17":"tag-tech","18":"tag-told"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49635","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=49635"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49635\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/49636"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=49635"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=49635"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=49635"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}