Safety Check

If you think your activities (online and offline) are being monitored, you are probably right. People who are abusive often want to know their victim’s every move and interaction. If this is something you’re experiencing, it’s important to think through how they might be tracking your online activity. These tips can help you think through how to access information online more safely:

• Computers, mobile devices, and online accounts store a lot of private information about what you view online – the websites you visit (like this one), the things you search for, the emails and instant messages you send, the online videos you watch, the things you post on social media, the online phone or IP-TTY calls you make, your online banking and purchasing, and many others. 

• If your mobile device or computer are easily accessible to the abuser, be careful how you use it. You may want to keep using those devices for activities that won’t trigger violence – like looking up the weather – and find safe devices (like a public computer at the library) to look up information about how to get help.

• If the person who is abusive has access to your online accounts (social media, email, phone bill, etc), or has had access to them in the past, it is often helpful to update the usernames and passwords for those accounts from a safer device.

• You can also set up a new email address that they aren’t aware of, and connect your online accounts to it (rather than the old email address they know). It can be helpful to make the new address something that is more anonymous, instead of using your actual name or a handle you are already known by.

• Keep in mind, if you think you are being monitored, it might be dangerous to suddenly stop your online activity or stop them from accessing your accounts. You may want to keep using those devices or accounts for activities that won’t trigger violence – and find safer devices (like a public computer at the library) and accounts to look up information about how to get help, or to communicate with people privately.

• Email, instant messaging and text messaging with domestic violence agencies leaves a detailed digital trail of your communication, and can increase the risk that your abuser will know not only that you communicated, but the details of what you communicated. When possible, it’s best to call a hotline. If you use email, instant messaging, or text messaging, try to do so on a device and account that the abuser doesn’t know about or have access to, and remember to erase any messages you don’t want the abusive partner to see.

Check out NNEDV’s Technology Safety & Privacy Toolkit for Survivors for more important information.

This project was supported by Grant No. 2016-TA-AX-K069 awarded by the Office on Violence Against Women, U.S. Department of Justice. The opinions, findings, conclusions, and recommendations expressed in this program are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Department of Justice, Office on Violence Against Women.

Data Privacy Day: Honoring A Survivor’s Right To Safely Access Technology

When a survivor reaches out to a domestic violence program for help, it’s often as a last resort and with much trepidation. Social connection, access to financial resources, and a safe home have often been systematically stripped away from them by their abuser. Smartphones, email, and social media accounts are often the last remnants of their connection to support, and can serve as an important lifeline when they’re in danger.

Yet we often hear from survivors that when they’ve reached out for help about the harassment, stalking, and abuse they’ve experienced through technology and social media, the only advice they get is to completely disconnect from technology and delete their accounts. But this places the blame in the wrong place. The technology isn’t the issue; the abuser’s behavior is. And worse yet, this response punishes the victim for the abuse they’ve suffered, forcing them to become more isolated because their only option is to disconnect. It also impacts their safety; if a survivor is in need of help but can no longer access their support systems, the risk of danger can increase dramatically.

This Data Privacy Day, we celebrate a survivor’s right to safely access technology, and encourage programs to proactively safety plan with survivors to help them feel empowered and safe with their technology use. We need to view safe access to technology, the internet and social media as a fundamental right of survivors. Technology is a necessity in our everyday lives, and removing it is not a feasible option. Instead, domestic violence programs can help survivors not only find temporary refuge, but also help them build a new skill that will empower them to stay connected, feel less isolated, and have communication tools that can help them in emergency situations.

The Safety Net Project develops tools and resources that help both survivors and victim service agencies become more informed about how to safely use technology, and about how abusers might misuse technology to stalk and harass. On Data Privacy Day, we encourage you to explore these tools listed below, and to reach out to us with any questions you may have about the safe use of technology.

• The TechSafety App - This app was created for anyone who thinks they might be experiencing harassment or abuse through technology or who wants to learn more about how to increase their privacy and security while using technology.

• Technology Safety & Privacy Toolkit For Survivors - Survivors of domestic violence, sexual assault, stalking, and trafficking often need information on how to be safe while using technology. This toolkit provides safety tips, information, and privacy strategies to help survivors respond to potential technology misues and to increase their safety and privacy.

• The App Safety Center - There’s an app for everything, right? An increasing number of apps for smartphones and tablets are attempting to address the issues of domestic violence, sexual assault, and/or stalking. With so many apps, knowing which ones to use can be difficult. The App Safety Center will highlight some of these apps by providing information on what survivors and professionals need to know to use them safely.

• Agency’s Use of Technology: Best Practices & Policies Toolkit - The way domestic violence, sexual assault, and other victim service agencies use technology can impact the security, privacy, and safety of the survivors who access their services. This toolkit contains recommended best practices, policy suggestions, and handouts on the use of common technologies. 

YouTube’s New Tools Attempt to Address Online Harassment

Online harassment and abuse can take many forms. Threating and hateful comments turn up across online communities from newspapers to blogs to social media. Anyone posting online can be the target of these comments, which cross the line from honest disagreement to vengeful and violent attacks. This behavior is more than someone saying something you don’t like or saying something “mean” – it often includes ongoing harassment that can be nasty, personal, or threatening in nature. For survivors of abuse, threatening comments can be traumatizing, frightening, and can lead some people to not participate in online spaces.

YouTube recently created new tools to combat online abuse occurring within comments. These tools let users who post on their site choose words or phrases to “blacklist” as well as the option to use a beta (or test) version of a filter that will flag potentially inappropriate comments. With both tools, the comments are held for the user’s approval before going public. Users can also select other people to help moderate the comments.

Here’s a summary of the tools, pulled from YouTube:

• Choose Moderators: This was launched earlier in the year and allows users to give select people they trust the ability to remove public comments.

• Blacklist Words and Phrases: Users can have comments with select words or phrases held back from being posted until they are approved.

• Hold Potentially Inappropriate Comments for Review: Currently available in beta, this feature offers an automated system that will flag and hold, according to YouTube’s algorithm, any potentially inappropriate comments for approval before they are published. The algorithm may, of course, pull content that the user thinks is fine, but it will improve in its detection based on the users’ choices.

Survivors who post online know that abusive comments can come in by the hundreds or even thousands. While many sites have offered a way to report or block comments, these steps have only been available after a comment is already public, and each comment may have to be reported one by one. This new approach helps to catch abusive comments before they go live, and takes the pressure off of having to watch the comment feed 24 hours a day.

These tools also offer survivors a means to be proactive in protecting their information and safety. Since many online harassment includes tactics such as doxing (where personal information of someone is posted online with the goal of causing them harm), a YouTube user can add their personal information to the list of words and phrases that are not allowed to be posted. This can include part or all of phone numbers, addresses, email addresses, or usernames of other accounts. Proactively being able to block someone from posting your personal content in this space will be a great tool.

Everyone has the right to express themselves safely online, and survivors should be able to fully participate in online spaces. Connecting with family and friends online helps protect against the isolation that many survivors experience. These new tools can help to protect survivors’ voices online.