Exploring technology safety in the context of intimate partner violence, sexual assault, and violence against women.
Managed by the Safety Net Project at the National Network to End Domestic Violence (NNEDV), this blog explores the intersection between technology, intimate partner violence, sexual assault, and violence against women.
Safety Net focuses on the intersection of technology and abuse, and we work to address how that abuse impacts the safety, privacy, accessibility, and civil rights of survivors. Our team provides expert training and technical assistance, creates and disseminates resources, and influences conversations on technology abuse and safety globally. Safety Net is a project of the National Network to End Domestic Violence.
Encryption is the process of turning readable data to unreadable data. It can be used to protect survivors’, service providers’, and consumer companies’ data. When using an encrypted method for communicating, disclosures and requests for assistance that survivors share with others cannot be intercepted and read by anyone else. Encryption is critical to survivors’ privacy, safety, and self-determination.
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Stalking Awareness Month Graphic
As we commemorate National Stalking Awareness Month and Data Privacy Day today, we recognize four pillars to ensuring both consumer and survivor well-being: Safety, Privacy, Security, and Access. These pillars are the foundation that guides our work every day in helping to safeguard technology safety for all. While all of these go hand-in-hand, we’ll look at each one below.
Safety: In today’s digital age, survivors have an exhausting list of considerations to protect their information and their safety. Whether protecting location, online activity, home, and work addresses, or children’s whereabouts, so much of this is critical for a survivor’s safety. Survivors have a right to technology and shouldn’t have to choose between staying safe and using a device or platform. Many people rely on the internet to shop, look for jobs, search for resources, maybe even conduct business as part of their livelihood. Strong privacy and security policies and settings, along with access to technology, help keep all of us safe.
Privacy: Today is Data Privacy Day, but survivors and consumers alike always have a need for privacy. Whether a person wants to make sure that their accounts are private from the prying eyes of family members or future employers, or survivors of stalking who need to know the platforms they use do not share information with others, privacy benefits everyone. Strong privacy policies, settings, and protections mean that survivors and consumers can have one more way to take back control over their digital lives.
Security: Having a secure way to communicate with trusted individuals, seek online resources or help, or have a place to store legal, health, or other personal documents is incredibly important. As consumers, we share our information when using online spaces, services, and apps and hope that it remains secure. Strong security measures help ensure that personal information does not get into the wrong hands.
Access: Building a platform that is intentional in centering the needs of survivors and consumers means considering the accessibility needs of those who live with disabilities, speak another language, or have culturally-specific privacy and safety needs. Built from these perspectives, technology can be used by as many survivors and consumers as possible. Accessibility barriers that keep survivors from getting assistance can be a significant safety risk. Making sure that we have accessible products, platforms, and technologies should be a core tenet of our work.
Building and using technology with all this in mind can be challenging. For survivors, it can be exhausting and terrifying. Fortunately, more and more online platforms and services are building in End-to-End (E2E) Encryption as the default functionality to protect the privacy and security of users and their data. We’re always happy to see these announcements and even more thrilled when the platform has clearly also considered safety and accessibility!
E2E Encryption can be a little hard to understand, but it’s a really important feature to ensure privacy – and if you’re a victim service provider, to protect confidentiality. Safety Net worked with the Internet Society on a new resource to help survivors and service providers understand E2E Encryption more. Whether you’re a technology start-up, a victim service provider, or a survivor – understanding and using E2E encryption can be an important step to prioritizing safety, privacy, security, and ensuring access.
These four pillars guide us in this work and allow survivors and consumers the ability to harness the power to remain online in a safe and meaningful way.
This year has proven to be a year like none other. The COVID-19 pandemic has touched every facet of our lives and survivors have faced unprecedented hurdles. Participation in the 2020 general election will be no different.
Voting is a fundamental right and civic participation is an essential key to maintaining the health of a democracy. At the same time, it is crucial that barriers to voting are eliminated and safety and privacy are always ensured. There are many things for survivors to consider. These range from figuring out how to juggle work and child care, to protecting their health when casting a ballot in person , to safety plan so that they are able to cast their ballot without the abuser escalating their behaviors, and to understanding voting requirements in their state or territory and how those processes may impact their privacy and safety.
Voter registration privacy (or the lack thereof) differs across states and territories. Some allow people to check their voter registration status online, which sometimes includes their current address. (A list of state-specific links to check your voter status can be accessed at vote.org – you can look up your registration without sharing your personal information with the vote.org website, just keep scrolling down past the welcome and you’ll see a list of specific states. You can use this tool to check that you’re registered correctly, and you can also use it to see what someone else could learn about you if they know some of your basic information already.)
For many survivors of domestic violence, sexual assault, stalking, or trafficking, privacy is inextricably connected to safety. Physical safety, emotional safety, economic safety; the list goes on. And it’s important to remember that privacy can be just as important to survivors who are still connected to their abuser as it is for those who have successfully fled.
With all this in mind, we have updated our Voting & Survivor Privacy resource that takes a deeper dive into the topics above, including information about voter registration privacy, online voter registration, automatic voter registration, and a new section on voting safely and privately. Read through the resource and share it with survivors in your life, so they can get out and vote in the upcoming election and beyond!
Managed by the Safety Net Project at the National Network to End Domestic Violence (NNEDV), this blog explores the intersection of technology and privacy and intimate partner violence, sexual assault and violence against women.
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