Resource Update! New content and language translations for Safety & Privacy on Facebook: A Guide for Survivors of Abuse

Last year, NNEDV teamed up with Facebook to create Safety & Privacy on Facebook: A Guide for Survivors of Abuse. This guide lays out both basic and more advanced privacy and safety features of Facebook, which can help survivors when they are trying to maximize privacy when using Facebook or are attempting to document an abusers’ online harassment. 

This year, as part of Domestic Violence Awareness Month, NNEDV and Facebook worked together to update the guide and translate it into several languages, including Spanish, French, Chinese, and Vietnamese. The updates include guidance on new features and any privacy and security settings that have changed. A new feature that is explained further in the guide is the Download Your Information (DYI) Tool. This tool allows users to download most of their Facebook activity and content, including posts made by other people on the users’ account. For survivors of harassment and stalking, this can be used to document abuse. 

The guide addresses privacy within Facebook, as well as safety tips and options for when someone is misusing the site to harass, monitor, threaten, or stalk.  It refers back to Facebook’s Help Center in several places for more detailed information on settings and features – a site that all Facebook users should check out. 

We believe strongly that everyone has a right to privacy and safety, both offline and online. We also know how important is it for survivors to remain connected to both family and friends and to maintain control over their personal information. Although we often hear suggestions that survivors shouldn’t use social media, we don’t agree that this is a solution. Getting off social media doesn’t guarantee any level of safety or privacy. Additionally, online spaces can decrease isolation and offer much support for survivors, especially when they offer privacy and security controls to the user. Survivors shouldn’t have to worry about their safety when they want to connect with friends and family online. It is critical that survivors have the information that they need to navigate their lives safely, which in today’s digital age, includes online spaces.  

Since joining Facebook’s Safety Advisory Board in 2010, NNEDV has embraced its partnership with Facebook to consistently support the needs of victims of domestic violence, dating abuse, cyber-stalking, and teen dating violence. As we continue our efforts together to enhance the safety and privacy for survivors who are online, NNEDV thanks all those at Facebook for their dedicated efforts to make Facebook a safe environment for all users. 

Please check out the Safety & Privacy on Facebook: A Guide for Survivors of Abuse and share with others! 

English - Safety & Privacy on Facebook: A Guide for Survivors of Abuse

Spanish - Safety & Privacy on Facebook: A Guide for Survivors of Abuse

French - Safety & Privacy on Facebook: A Guide for Survivors of Abuse

Vietnamese - Safety & Privacy on Facebook: A Guide for Survivors of Abuse

Chinese - Safety & Privacy on Facebook: A Guide for Survivors of Abuse

New Resources on Technology Safety For Agencies & Survivors

We receive a lot of questions from victim service providers about technology safety. How do we use use technology within our organizations? How are abusers misusing technology to stalk victims? How do we educate survivors on increasing their privacy when using technology. In response to those questions and concerns, we have developed additional resources to assist programs and survivors. We are very excited to officially release two brand new toolkits for that exact purpose: Agency’s Use of Technology Best Practices & Policies and Technology Safety & Privacy: A Toolkit for Survivors. These two toolkits comprise of a variety of resources on technology safety issues that will be helpful for victim service providers and the survivors they serve.

The misuse of technology by abusers is a serious concern for victim service agencies working with survivors of domestic violence, sexual assault, stalking, and trafficking. Because we use technology every day of our lives, it has become an easy tool for perpetrators to misuse to stalk and harass victims. Survivors need to know how to strategize for their own safety when using technology.

The Technology Safety & Privacy: A Toolkit for Survivors contains information on a variety of topics to help survivors maintain their safety. Resources include safety plans around technology use, including a specific safety plan for cell phones; videos on how to limit location access on a smart phone and how to take a screenshot on a computer or cell phone to document abuse; and lots of information on online safety, including a Facebook privacy & safety guide and tips on how to create more secure passwords.

The need to know how to use technology safely isn’t limited to survivors. Victim service agencies need to make sure that their own use of technology is secure and private. How they set up and use technology can have serious safety implications for the survivors they work with. The Agency’s Use of Technology Best Practices & Policies toolkit includes a wide range of information, including guidance when using different types of technology to communicate with survivors; resources on data management, including how to select a database; and best practices and policies around the use of technologies such as faxes and computers.

These toolkits and resources were created with support from US DOJ-OVC Grant #2011-VF-GX-K016. 

Creator of StealthGenie Arrested

A couple weeks ago, Hammad Akbar, the creator of StealthGenie, a mobile application that allows someone to spy on another person’s cellphone, was arrested by the FBI. He was arrested on charges of conspiracy, sales of surreptitious interception devices, and advertising a surreptitious interception device. Advertised as a way to keep an eye on cheating spouses, monitor teenage children, and employers, anyone can download and install StealthGenie to monitor all activities on a cell phone.

Other than the computer, the cellphone is one of the most used forms of technology. In fact, according Pew Internet, 44% of Americans sleep with their phones so they don’t miss out on texts or messages. We use our cell phone to organize our lives, search for information (let me google that for you), entertain us, and communicate with others – via text, social media, email, and, sometimes, even a phone call. For many of us, survivors included, our cell phone is our lifeline to help, information, and to other people. Cellphone spyware makes it incredibly easy for abusers and stalkers to monitor the activities and location of survivors through their cell phones.

When abusers are stalking their victims’ phones via spyware, it is 24-7 control and abuse. In addition to constant monitoring, abusers often engage in other types of abuse, such as physical abuse, threats, and emotional abuse. The result is that survivors feel completely isolated and cut off from any avenue of help. Everything they say and everything they do is monitored and controlled by the abuser. The trauma and the fear can be overwhelming.

StealthGenie isn’t the only monitoring product out there. There are many similar products available, including mSpy, MobiStealth, Spy Bubble. Some of these products are advertised under the guise of protecting your vulnerable children or protecting your liability by monitoring your employees. Some come right out and encourage users to buy their products to “catch your cheating spouse.” In reality, abusers and stalkers are buying these products to further terrorize and abuse their victims.

We’re glad that the government is cracking down on products that make it easier for abusers to harm victims. For years, when their phones were being monitored survivors would have to get a new phone – a very expensive step – simply to stay safe. Removing these types of products from the market means one less tool for abusers to use to stalk and harass survivors of domestic violence and stalking.

For more information about cell phone safety, visit our Technology Safety & Privacy toolkit. For more information about NNEDV Safety Net’s advocacy work on cell phone privacy and safety, watch Cindy Southworth, Vice President of NNEDV’s testimony at the Location Privacy Protection Act of 2014 hearing.