“He always seemed to know where I was” - how domestic abusers use tech
Swindon Domestic Abuse Support Services (SDASS) highlights the dangers of modern technology
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Technology – your best friend or worst enemy?
“He always seemed to know where I was.”
“She always rang using video calling – like she was checking to see if I was where I said I was”
“He said the tracker on my phone was because he was worried about me.”
By Jo Eamey, CEO of Swindon Domestic Abuse Support Services (SDASS)
People in healthy relationships use technology for positive reasons but technology-facilitated abuse, or tech abuse, is emerging as a significant and challenging form of domestic abuse.
Technology may be introduced by abuse perpetrators for seemingly positive reasons; “I just want to check you get home from work safe”, “we should get cameras in the house for when we are away”, “if we trust each other we should know each other’s passwords” but over time, it can be used to monitor, control and harass.
This is Sally’s Story:
Sally contacted us via the helpline. She has severe food allergies and her husband had placed cameras and listening devices at home “for her protection, to enable him to help her if she was to ever have ‘one of her episodes’”. However, his behaviour had become increasingly abusive, and he had threatened to kill her when she talked about leaving.
It became clear that even having this conversation with Sally was risky and staff needed to act quickly. Having discovered that Sally’s husband had also placed cameras on the driveway, a decision was made for a police escort to safely accompany her and her children to Refuge.
Whilst in Refuge, Sally and her daughter were contacted by her husband via her daughter’s iPad. Location settings had been turned off, however Sally allowed her daughter to use the iPad without supervision and she inadvertently had shared a ‘pin’ giving her location .
Refuge moved to a state of ‘high alert’ and an emergency move was organised.
Happily, Sally was finally able to make the break that she and her daughter needed to feel safe are now moving forward with their lives.