Digital Abuse in Close Relationships

Digital abuse or technology-facilitated abuse refer to abusive behaviours carried out using technology or digital platforms. These may include smartphones and other digital devices, GPS trackers, messaging services, electronic identification tools, or social media.

In a controlling relationship, digital abuse may take the form of monitoring the victim’s social media activity, demanding access to their location data, damaging their devices, or preventing them from communicating with others. Digital abuse is often linked to other forms of abuse, such as emotional and financial abuse. It is particularly common in situations involving coercive control and stalking.

Perpetrators may also use technology for monitoring and surveillance. Spyware installed on a phone can provide extensive information, including messages, call records and recordings, access to microphones or cameras, usernames and passwords, and location data. In addition to dedicated spyware, perpetrators may misuse parental control applications, hack into online accounts, or exploit backup and cloud services to spy on another person.

Sexual abuse can also take digital forms, often involving intimate images or videos. Examples include sharing intimate images without consent, threatening to share them, using them for blackmail, pressuring someone to provide intimate images, secretly recording intimate material, or creating realistic fake intimate images or videos of another person.

Children and Digital Abuse

Monitoring a child’s phone and social media use is often necessary and helping children develop digital and online safety skills is an important part of parenting. However, children also have a right to privacy, including the confidentiality of their personal communications.

For this reason, monitoring should be carried out openly, through discussion, and in a way that is appropriate for the child’s age and level of development. Installing monitoring software on a child’s device without their knowledge violates their privacy and can undermine their trust in adults.

In some cases, an abusive parent may also use a child’s devices to monitor or spy on the other parent. This can occur, for example, as part of ongoing abuse or stalking after separation.

Read more about domestic violence

• Domestic violence can affect everyone
• Dynamics of an Abusive Relationship
  • Warning Signs of an Abusive Relationship
• Experiencing Violence and Abuse in a Close Relationship
  • Traumatic Crisis of Domestic Abuse
  • Children and Adolescents as Victims of Domestic Violence
• Forms of Violence and Abuse in Close Relationships
  • Emotional Abuse in Close Relationships
  • Physical Violence in an Intimate Relationship
  • Sexual Violence in Close Relationships
  • Coercive Control in Close Relationships
  • Economic Abuse in Close Relationships
  • Honour Based Abuse in Close Relationships
  • Spiritual or Religious Abuse in an Intimate Relationship
  • Post-Separation Abuse and Stalking in Close Relationships
• Leaving an Abusive Relationship
  • Considering Safety in Situations Involving Domestic Violence and Abuse
  • Advice for Those Supporting a Victim of Domestic Abuse
• Recovering from Abuse and Violence