New Safety Booklet Launched to Combat Technology-Facilitated Abuse in Domestic Violence

Safe Ireland in asso­ci­a­tion with the Nati­o­nal Cyber Secu­rity Aware­ness Task­force today laun­ched a new safety guide titled Suppor­ting Women: Respon­ding to Tech­no­logy-Faci­li­ta­ted Domes­tic Abuse.  The book­let has been deve­lo­ped as a tool for front­line domes­tic-abuse respon­ders to enable them to support women who are victims of tech­no­logy-faci­li­ta­ted abuse.  The book­let was laun­ched on the fringe of the Cyber Ireland Nati­o­nal Confe­rence and follows a two-week bill­bo­ard campaign in Cork which crea­ted aware­ness of beha­vi­ou­ral red-flags which signal tech­no­logy-faci­li­ta­ted abuse.

As tech­no­lo­gies and plat­forms that make our lives easier are incre­a­singly being used by more and more people every day, perpe­tra­tors of abuse are also adop­ting these tech­no­lo­gies to exert coer­cion and control over their part­ners. Accor­ding to Mary McDer­mott CEO of Safe Ireland, digi­tal abuse follows the norms of other forms of abuse where victims are often blamed, disbe­li­e­ved or dismis­sed:

“Tech­no­logy-faci­li­ta­ted abuse has become a power­ful means of coer­cion by perpe­tra­tors which allows signi­fi­cant reach beyond the boun­dary of the home. As healthy beha­vi­ours regar­ding the use of tech­no­logy have not yet been cultu­rally sett­led, in many cases women may not recog­nise tech­no­logy-faci­li­ta­ted coer­cion and abuse as the beha­vi­our may be percei­ved as normal.”

The safety-guide has been desig­ned for speci­a­list domes­tic violence profes­si­o­nals who work with victims of domes­tic abuse and coer­cive control as it impacts women and chil­dren. Its primary use is for front­line respon­ders

in Domes­tic Violence Servi­ces and Refu­ges but is also desig­ned as a resource for allied profes­si­o­nals such as Gardaí, doctors, nurses, social workers, phar­ma­cists and other health­care profes­si­o­nals. Family, friends, neigh­bours and other commu­nity members may also find the guide useful if they are suppor­ting some­one at risk of tech­no­logy-faci­li­ta­ted abuse.

Commen­ting on the colla­bo­ra­tion Joanne O’Con­nor, Foun­der of Cyber Aware­ness Ireland said:

“The part­ners­hip between the Nati­o­nal Cyber Secu­rity Aware­ness Task Force & Safe Ireland is narro­wing the tech secu­rity know­ledge gap between the cyber secu­rity industry in Ireland and the nati­o­nal orga­ni­sa­tion that supports survi­vors of domes­tic abuse. We hope this guide will enable support and service workers bols­ter the exis­ting servi­ces Safe Ireland provide and enhance the protec­tion of victims and survi­vors of tech­no­logy-faci­li­ta­ted abuse. We also encou­rage the gene­ral popu­la­tion to absorb this guide on respon­ding to tech­no­logy-faci­li­ta­ted abuse to better equip each of us to recog­nise and respond in safe, encou­ra­ging and infor­med way.

Users of the book­let will also have access to a number of support-trai­ning initi­a­ti­ves inclu­ding free Cyber Secu­rity Essen­ti­als Trai­ning webi­nars provi­ded by Hewlett Packard Enter­prise and a series of infor­ma­ti­o­nal videos crea­ted by secu­rity soft­ware deve­lop­ment company Trend Micro. This will be further supple­men­ted later in the year by access to a new online accre­di­ted course in tech­no­logy-assis­ted abuse which is currently under deve­lop­ment at Univer­sity College Cork. The course will be avai­la­ble nati­o­nally and is desig­ned speci­fi­cally for front­line domes­tic abuse profes­si­o­nals, but is also expec­ted to be of signi­fi­cant inter­est to Univer­sity staff and students.

END

For further infor­ma­tion on this state­ment please contact

Miriam Kivle­han Programme & Commu­ni­ca­tion Mana­ger 086 383 6877 | Email: miriamsafei­re­land [ punto ] ie (miriam[at]safei­re­land[dot]ie)

About the Campaign Part­ners

Safe Ireland is a regis­te­red charity opera­ting as a nati­o­nal deve­lop­ment, advo­cacy and co-ordi­na­tion body to eradi­cate Domes­tic Violence (DV) through its nati­on­wide network of 39 DV refuge and support-service affi­li­a­tes.

Cyber Skills provi­des online cyber­se­cu­rity educa­tion through univer­sity accre­di­ted path­ways and micro-creden­ti­als in order to upskill the work­force against cyber­se­cu­rity thre­ats and attacks.

Cyber Aware­ness Ireland (CAI) is a nati­o­nal body who rese­arch, deve­lop & curate Cyber Secu­rity Aware­ness messa­ging in Ireland. They are the nati­o­nal cura­tors for the inter­na­ti­o­nal STOP.THINK.CONNECT™ campaign. Cyber Aware­ness Ireland esta­blis­hed the Nati­o­nal Cyber Secu­rity Aware­ness Task Force.

The Nati­o­nal Cyber Secu­rity Aware­ness Task Force (NCSATF) is a consor­tium of Cyber Industry profes­si­o­nals who are brin­ging their unders­tan­ding of tech­no­logy to domes­tic violence support servi­ces. The NCSATF is commit­ted to brin­ging secu­rity profes­si­o­nals toget­her to tackle driving forces and reduce human risk within soci­ety in Ireland. The Task­force commit­ted to a 12-month colla­bo­ra­tion with Safe Ireland in an aim to close the know­ledge gap between the cyber secu­rity industry in Ireland and the orga­ni­sa­ti­ons that support survi­vors of domes­tic abuse and coer­cive control.