Wed Sep 4

New laws to tackle technology-based abuse in NSW are welcome. But police and courts also need to step up

Written by Anastasia Powell, Professor, Family and Sexual Violence, RMIT University

New South Wales Premier Chris Minns has committed to a range of reforms ^[1] strengthening legal responses to family violence across the state. These reforms follow the alleged murder of 28-year-old Molly Ticehurst by her former partner earlier this year.

A key plank of the new reforms is a revision of stalking laws in the state. This revision will recognise the increasing role technologies such as GPS trackers play in family violence.

These changes to the NSW stalking laws are welcome. But they may not be enough to address the widespread use of technology to stalk and harass people – especially women.

The reason is simple: too often police and courts don’t take tech-facilitated family violence seriously.

Tech-facilitated abuse is very common

Tech-faciliated abuse is a form of interpersonal violence that involves the use of mobile phones or other digital technologies to harass, monitor, abuse, cause fear, or otherwise inflict harm on someone. It is very common, with nearly half of all Australian adults ^[2] experiencing at least one form of tech-facilitated abuse in their lifetime.

Some examples include hacking a “smart” speaker to listen in on a private conversation or using a GPS tracking device to monitor where a person is at any given time. In June, the NSW Crime Commission revealed ^[3] 25% of people who had bought some kind of tracking device in the past 18 months had a history of domestic and family violence.

Australian research ^[4] has identified several key features ^[5] of tech-facilitated family violence.

For example, when women experience tech-facilitated abuse, it is often part of a pattern of other forms of abusive behaviour from a current or former partner. In other words, women’s experiences of tech-facilitated abuse often take place in the context of multiple forms of family violence, including controlling behaviours and physical assault.

Women victims of tech-facilitated abuse in family violence contexts also tend to experience high levels of distress and fear for their physical safety.

What is most concerning about the research into tech-facilitated family violence is that victim-survivors also often tell us they have been turned away by police ^[6] when they’ve tried to report and seek assistance.

Even women who have a protection order in place say police are often reluctant to charge a perpetrator for breaching the order. That is, unless the breach is a physical assault or a physical trespass on her property.

These sorts of responses leave victim-survivors feeling that tech-facilitated abuse is not taken seriously. But all those repeated messages or voicemails, the doxing online, the tracking of a woman’s location, the spyware on her devices; these are clear red flags for physical violence.

What are the proposed reforms?

Currently, the law which governs stalking in NSW ^[7] prohibits repeatedly following, watching, contacting and/or approaching a person to cause them fear of physical or mental harm. While this can include online behaviours, the revised law will more clearly specify this can include any technologically assisted means of doing so.

Other states across Australia have already made changes to stalking laws to clearly include tech-assisted means of abuse. In Victoria the laws ^[8] specifically include the use of the internet or other electronic means to carry out stalking behaviours.

The proposed reforms in NSW also include new offences for serious and repeated breaches of a protection order. The government has also started an overhaul of bail decisions ^[9], including for people accused of serious domestic violence offences.

A photograph of a young woman at a funeral service.

The proposed reforms in NSW follow the murder of Molly Ticehurst earlier this year. Lukas Coch/AAP ^[10]

Police and courts need to take tech-facilitated abuse seriously

The National Plan to End Violence against Women and Children 2022–2032 ^[11] rightly tells us we need to hold people who use violence accountable.

But there remains a gap in programs ^[12] to help men change their abusive behaviour.

Taking tech-facilitated family violence seriously would not only improve women’s safety – it might also provide the opportunity to intervene early with abusers.

Sadly, this isn’t happening.

Of course, there are examples of proactive policing ^[13] and court responses that do take tech-facilitated family violence seriously.

But as many victim-survivors have often said, a protection order is only a piece of paper. It means nothing if the police don’t act on it when it is breached. And so the problem of tech-facilitated abuse may remain despite the proposed reforms in NSW. It is not necessarily one of insufficient laws, but rather a reluctance or lack of resources to act on the laws we already have.

If governments really want to turn the tide to address family violence in all its forms, they need to properly implement the actions under the National Plan.

That includes investing in well-trained police, specialist courts and legal services. It also includes investing in programs to change abuser behaviour, as well as funding family violence support workers.

It is not right for victim-survivors to be facing ongoing harassment from their abuser, while feeling that our legal and support systems have abandoned them.

The National Sexual Assault, Family and Domestic Violence Counselling Line – 1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732) – is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week for any Australian who has experienced, or is at risk of, family and domestic violence and/or sexual assault.