Tech Summit 2021 – Session Description

 Monday – July 19
Connecting the Dots: From Core Values to Emerging Technologies Part 1, Tech Abuse & Risks
The Safety Net Team

Tech Safety is no longer a sideline activity in the context of any anti-abuse work. It can’t be. To us, Tech Safety is a broad term that encompasses all the ways that technology can intersect with survivor’s lives. That includes tech abuse, security, privacy, and strategic use. It includes agency use and an engineer’s perspective at design. All of these pieces need to be a fundamental part of the foundation by which we operate and a basic part of victim safety work. If a core value is to be survivor-centered and meet survivors where they are, we need to recognize that tech is now a deeply entrenched part of our lives. It’s no longer a matter of “IF” tech will be a concern or an issue to consider. It’s ever-present and consistently evolving. This session will breakdown the work of Tech Safety down into tangible buckets, diving into issues of Tech Abuse, Tech-Related Risks, Strategic and Safe Use, and Technology Design & Policy Formulation.

It Sucks Being Cyber-Stalked – My Path From Victim, to Survivor, to Champion
Jessica Tunon

In this session, Jessica will share the very real-world impacts that cyber-stalking has had on her safety, economic wellbeing, sense of personal privacy, and many other aspects of life. She’ll walk the audience through how she navigated a path from victim, to survivor, to champion, discovering the tools and resources she needed to regain control of her life and become an advocate for survivor privacy. She’ll help the audience explore and answer common survivor questions like: When will I no longer look over my shoulder? Why consent matters? How do I advocate for policy and practice change? How do I become a better advocate for myself and others?

 Connecting the Dots: From Core Values to Emerging Technologies Part 2, Strategic Use, Design, & Policy
The Safety Net Team

Building on Part 1, we’ll dive into a discussion on why it’s critical to have a survivor-centric and trauma-informed approach to the strategic and safe use of technology, product design, and policy development. Whether we are implementing technology within an agency for the purpose of enhancing service delivery, working to empower survivors around their personal and purposeful tech use, or designing technology products and platforms with safety and privacy in mind, we need to consistently be mindful of how to maximize safety while minimizing potential risks and opportunities for misuse.

Tuesday – July 20

Digital Literacy to Digital Safety: Barriers Survivors from Marginalized Communities Experience
Nadia Khaliq & Jodi Leedham (Refuge, UK)

In this interactive workshop, we will highlight our priority as a team to bring multiple strands of specialised knowledge together and provide practical advice to others on how to approach intersecting disadvantages. We will present what we have learnt from refining Refuge’s multilingual tech support bot – developed in consultation with survivors – and ask what needs to be addressed in tech empowerment work with marginalised communities to maximise impact and minimise barriers.

Tech for Tu/Ni/You: Bridging the Divide for Limited English Proficient Survivors During (and After) COVID-19
Orchid Pusey & Hediana Utarti (Asian Women’s Shelter)

On March 16, 2020, San Francisco issued its first Shelter-in-Place Ordinance, naming domestic violence shelters as essential services that could stay open. Organizations serving survivors across the state and country began shifting in response to evolving science, regulations, and resources. Whether our organizations were already in the fast lane on the interstate, or miles away at a sleepy stop sign, it was time to accelerate up the on-ramp to the technology freeway.

Managing this burst of technology in one language has been hard. But what about those who face tech and language barriers? This workshop focuses on the digital divide blocking low income limited English proficient survivors of violence from equal opportunity, and how organizations can bridge it. How do we support parents and their toddlers when resources are online and in English only? What about the immigrant teenagers in shelter who depend on the in-person volunteer tutoring program to understand their homework and practice English? What do we do for the survivor who has never downloaded an app before? Getting the support group online with interpreters…running a live stream fundraiser with simultaneous interpretation into ten languages…the advocate who just learned email last year…it’s a lot.

In this workshop, participants will learn and share strategies for bridging the digital divide not just to make do during the pandemic, but to advance equitable access to technology for survivors from marginalized communities in new and lasting ways. The workshop comes from direct, recent, and relevant experience with survivors and communities in a domestic violence organization that has shifted almost every area of its work since March 2020 and maintained connections with clients despite working with a constituency that is 90% limited English proficient, low to no income, and not digitally native.

Wednesday – July 21

NCII: Emerging Threats & Working with Survivors
Adam Dodge (EndTAB) & Michelle Gonzalez (CCRI)

This session will review foundational information related to the nonconsensual distribution of intimate images (NCII), including key definitions of nonconsensual pornography and sextortion; prevalence of these crime types; the mode and method of perpetrators; harms to individuals and to society; unique impacts to marginalized communities; and the possible correlation between online abuse rates and the COVID-19 pandemic. The session will also offer avenues that victims and survivors might explore as they relate to documenting, reporting, and seeking redress.

NCII is now also innovating through the use of new technological advancements like deepfakes and proliferating on emerging platforms like OnlyFans. To keep pace, those working with victims of gender-based violence should have a working understanding of these emerging issues to inform their work in preventing and responding to NCII. In particular, we will highlight relevant innovations within the NCII landscape; tech-savvy prevention strategies, and how to respond to these new threats.

Zooming In: What We’ve Learned About Using Technology with Survivors During the Pandemic
Toby Shulruff (NNEDV)

Before the pandemic, a handful of programs were using tools like video, chat, or text to communicate with survivors. We thought it would be a way to increase access, but the privacy and technical hurdles stopped many of us from diving into digital services. By June 2020, over 500 programs were saying they’d started using these tools to work with survivors in the pandemic. In this session, we’ll pause and look at the benefits and challenges of these tools. We’ll talk about what recent research has shown, and share stories from some local programs. Finally, we will highlight key practices for digital services, with a focus on safety and privacy, clear communication, informed consent, and planning for the unexpected. Whether you are just curious, actively planning to launch digital services, or wondering how to strengthen services you already offer, this session is for you.

Thursday – July 22

The Importance of Thoughtful Tech Design: A Panel Discussion
Moderator: Erica Olsen (NNEDV), Panelists: Tara Hairston (Kaspersky), Kevin Roundy (Norton LifeLock), Cindy Southworth (Facebook)

This panel discussion, between advocates and technologists, will look at the importance of trauma-informed technology design for survivors to increase safety and privacy and minimize opportunities for abuse. Many current threat models used to assess for the potential of abuse only account for broader privacy issues such as state surveillance and do not take interpersonal abuse into consideration. We will discuss best practices for incorporating survivor-centered approaches to technological design, anti-abuse testing, and related policy development.

Hot Topics in Technology, Confidentiality, & Privacy
Alicia Aiken (Confidentiality Institute, Danu Center for Strategic Advocacy) & Corbin Streett (NNEDV)

Technology and our use of it are evolving faster as every day passes! Sometimes we need to slow down and pay attention to the potential risks of using technology in our organizations, and how we can be as survivor-centered as possible in our approach to adapting innovative tech into our best practices work. Topics we expect to discuss will include cloud-based surveillance cameras at domestic and sexual violence programs, technology tools for managing public health situation in our community, and which ever headline-grabbing hack or innovation happened in the days leading up to the conference!