How abusers use technology to spy on and subdue their partner
SMART technology has made coercive control easier for perpetrators and more suffocating for victims, according to Ireland’s main network of domestic violence services.
Lisa Marmion, services development manager at Safe Ireland, said her first thought when she hears of certain new technologies is how they could be exploited by domestic abusers.
Aside from ‘malicious actions’ enabled by smartphones, Ms Marmion said there is ‘loads of different smart technology that can be maximised’ to keep victims subdued.
She told the Irish Mail on Sunday that Safe Ireland has encountered women whose lights or heating have been turned on and off remotely by a controlling partner.
‘Under the guise of keeping us all safe there’s CCTV in the house – with audio – not just outside. There’s the children’s safety monitors…
‘So if you think about all the things that we rely on to make our lives a wee bit easier, they can be channelled for abuse.’
Ms Marmion also referred to trackable tags – keyrings designed and marketed as a prevention against losing things like keys and luggage.
‘Because I’m in this work a long time, my immediate thought is “Oh sweet Jesus”.
‘There’s nothing stopping somebody putting a smart tag into someone’s coat, into their bag, into their car. And then you know where somebody is 24/7 and you’re able to hold them accountable for it.’ (Some smart tags have safety features that prevent their use for secret tracking.)
Smartphones alone present a world of exposure for victims of coercive control, from barrages of messages to hidden apps that track and access the victim’s phone use – as employed by Martin Hayes, convicted of the manslaughter of his partner Amadea McDermott this week.
Ms Marmion continued: ‘Then there’s location information; there’s what somebody’s doing or who they’re with; there’s the capacity for doxxing – sharing their information all over the place.
‘And you can humiliate them publicly or privately on a platform; you can intimidate them; stalk them – you can achieve a lot of those kinds of behaviours remotely.
‘So you’re talking about the absent presence of somebody all the time, even if they’re not in front of you.’
Ms Marmion describes coercive control as ‘a pattern or range of acts designed to make a person subordinate or dependent… very controlling, instrumental behaviour that intends to harm, punish or frighten.’
These acts often involve isolating victims from their family and friends, exploiting their ‘resources and capacities for personal gain’ and generally depriving them of the means for independence.
‘Anything that basically either literally or metaphorically makes somebody’s world smaller.’
Perpetrators will use ‘what matters to you’ against you, Ms Marmion said.
‘If your family is very important to you, then they would try to isolate you either directly or indirectly from your family.
‘If you were somebody that took huge pride in your appearance, they’ll try to undermine that. Try to make you eat; try to starve you, try to tell you what to wear. It’s always a bespoke pattern for each person.’
Abusers will try to ‘reinforce’ their control with the ‘or else’, which may be unspoken, Ms Marmion said.
Coercive control often won’t be obvious to outsiders, and might not even be for the victim.
Ms Marmion uses the ‘boiling frog’ analogy – that if you put a frog in cold water and slowly heat the water, it won’t notice the gradual change until the damage is done.
‘If you had an insight into what the relationship would become on your first date, there wouldn’t be a second date,’ she said.
‘It’s an incremental thing. In the early stages of relationships, there can be that kind of love bombing, “Where have you been all my life? This is the most wonderful thing that’s ever happened to me”.
‘And that kind of masks that somebody is getting into your space and embedding themselves in your space. Then before you know it, you’re in the mix of this and it becomes normal.
‘You might have children, you might have a mortgage together. There’s the power of love and [the victim] might not necessarily want the relationship to finish – but they want to go back to the early stages when it was fantastic.’
She said coercive control can often seem like mere ‘attentiveness’ and go unnoticed.
‘They’re constantly on the phone; they’re constantly texting and if [the partner] is with family and friends, they’re always there as well. But on the outside looking in, it might look like somebody is very attentive.’