Apps can’t stop exes who use technology for stalking.
SlateIn December, Edward Snowden unveiled a new app called Haven, which turns your Android phone into a monitoring device to detect and record activity. What we’ve discovered in our research is that digital abuse of intimate partners is both more mundane and more complicated than we might think. It’s mundane in that many forms of digital abuse require little to no sophistication and are carried out using everyday devices and services: social media platforms, find-my-friends apps, cellphone family plans. What’s difficult about protecting the privacy and security of victims isn’t technical complexity; it’s that the relationship between the abuser and the victim involves social, physical, financial, and emotional ties, and that digital abuse is deeply intertwined with all of these. It won’t deter abusers using social media to stalk or harass victims; it won’t foreclose an abuser’s access to family plans or digital accounts.
History of this topic
Tech companies should build products with domestic violence victims in mind, expert says
ABC
Sex predators using dating apps as ‘hunting grounds’ for vulnerable victims, new research shows
The Independent
Almost three-quarters of dating app users subjected to online sexual violence, study finds
ABC
Almost one in 10 in relationship admit to using ‘stalkerware to monitor partner’
The Independent
Three-quarters of domestic abuse victims trying to flee partner hit with ‘insidious’ technological abuse
The Independent
Woman’s stalker used phone apps to stop, start and control her car
The Independent
Domestic violence victims struggling to flee tracking by abusive ex-partners
ABC
Abusive partners stalking women with tracking devices in toys, prams
ABC
Cyber stalking increasing, 'easy' way to abuse women: domestic violence report
ABC
New phone app helps women recognise signs of domestic violence
ABCDiscover Related
Security a priority at Unrivaled with cyber stalking on the rise toward women’s basketball players
Associated Press