Refuge's Tech Safety Newsletter April 24
How Safe are our Homes?
For most people, smart devices offer safety and convenience at home. For survivors living in abusive relationships, smart devices may be used as tools of abuse. Smart home cameras may act as their jailer, ensuring that leaving the home cannot go unnoticed. Smart speakers become a third person in the room, reporting your conversations back to a perpetrator. In the wrong hands, smart internet-connected devices can be used by abusers to harm and exert control over their partners.
So, what is a smart device? Smart devices are electronics that connect to other devices and accounts, either through your home Wi-Fi or another online connection. They’re often also referred to at the ‘Internet of Things’ (IoT). In recent years we’ve seen many everyday objects be re-imagined into connected smart devices, like doorbells and lightbulbs. Most smart devices will have a companion app or account. This is the platform that helps you to control your smart device and will often need to be set up with an email and a password. Here’s where the issues start.
All the data and settings for our smart devices can be controlled from the account or app that they’re set up with. In many cases reported to Refuge, not having access to these accounts has left survivors at risk of experiencing Technology-Facilitated Abuse. Research carried out by Refuge and Avast in 2021 found that over a third (36%) of women in the UK have no admin control over the IoT devices in their own homes. One in four women (27%) stated that admin access for these devices has not been shared equally or with transparency in their household. Many women report to Refuge that their experience of Technology-Facilitated abuse was underpinned by their partners diminishing their confidence in technology. Women were often told that their partners would set up the devices as a kindness, as they would only ‘get it wrong’ or ‘mess it up’. This initial disempowerment about household technology allows perpetrators of abuse to install technology in the home that they have sole control of.
When asked about smart home tech nearly half of women in the UK (48%) were unable to name a single device they believed could be vulnerable to abuse. This number rose to 60% for women over the age of 55. Further to this, 66% of women did not know where to get information to help secure the devices in their home. For women who have been disempowered around technology it’s no wonder they struggle to identify a device that could be used against them, and wouldn’t know where to turn to when they’re ready to take back control of the devices in their home. We often hear that survivors of this kind of abuse find it difficult to explain their experiences to an outsider or other professional and be believed. Sometimes, they don’t understand how it’s happening themselves.
At Refuge we’ve developed and designed a range of guidance for some of the smart home tech we identified most often as being misused in abuse. We hope that this is not only a valuable resource for survivors, but also that professionals working with women might find a space to better understand what’s happening to survivors they are working with. Our guides and resources can be found online at refugetechsafety.org.
If you are a professional working with survivors of abuse, you can find out more about the training packages we deliver here.
It's only by recognising that smart devices can be a risk to those experiencing abuse, that society can start to address the problem. It’s key that the normalisation of smart technology in our homes doesn’t come at the cost of women’s safety. Smart devices have been designed with ‘good actors’ in mind – not perpetrators. Refuge is working hard to encourage tech companies to consider safety by design. Ensuring that VAWG and harms to women are better understood, and that these complex dynamics are considered by those designing and building devices intended to support everyday people at home. This is why we’re building partnerships within the world of tech and hope to continue to be able to ensure the experiences and voices of survivors are heard behind the scenes before a product hits the shelves. There’s still a long way to go, and a role to play from front line services such as policing, to legislators, lawmakers. Until widescale change is seen, Refuge will continue to offer support and guidance to survivors of technology-facilitated abuse who need it most.
New regulations for internet connected devices come into force
On 29th April, new security standards for consumer connectable products will come into force. This includes ‘Internet of Things’ devices that can connect to the internet, such as smart TVs, doorbells and home systems. Businesses which make and sell these products will need to be compliant with new security requirements under the Product Security and Telecommunications Infrastructure Act 2022. The requirements relate to:
banning universal default and easily guessable passwords
publishing information on how to report security issues
publishing information on minimum security update periods
Our interactive Tech Safety Tool can help empower survivors of technology-facilitated abuse to use their devices and accounts safely.
Refuge, In Conversation with... Sign Health
Over the past few weeks, the tech facilitated abuse and economic empowerment team has been bringing you a series of podcasts for Safer Internet Day. The theme this year is inspiring change, making a difference, managing influence, and navigating change online.
This episode is hosted by Djenne Kamara, (Project Lead, Refuge), with Marie Vickers (Head of domestic abuse services, Sign Health) and Natasha Trantum (BSL Interpreter). During this episode, Marie shares her expertise around the benefits and challenges of the internet for deaf victim survivors. Some advice about how deaf survivors can use the internet safely, and how we can all put accessibility and inclusion at the centre of our work.
(Extract from the podcast)
Marie: So if deaf people are struggling with understanding English and they don't understand how to use the internet, they don't know how to ask for support. It could be that they rely on the perpetrator to help with communication, which means they're allowing the perpetrator to take full advantage of them. And it is, you know, it's coercive control, they could change passwords, they could change access to information.
They could change a number of things. And, again, it's just a way of using coercive control for somebody who's vulnerable and they thinking, oh, yeah, they're helping me but actually, they're not they're controlling them.
And then not having that awareness of that, but perhaps they have no choice and they just have to put up with it and they just have to go along with it. So that can cause real issues with the internet and that's the negative side of the internet.
To access the full episode, please visit our Podcast, Refuge, In Conversation With...
BSL Video is available by logging into your Spotify account.