Confidentiality Conference Registration is Open!

REGISTER NOW!

Advocates are saying:

“Some survivors don’t reach out because they’re worried about mandated reporting requirements. This gets in the way of us being able to help.”

“What if no one on staff speaks the survivor’s language? How do we find a translator they feel safe with? And what agreements should be in place to protect victims’ privacy?”

“We get pressure from our community partners to share victim information. When we don’t, they get frustrated and that makes collaboration difficult.”

“We don’t have a policy for how to handle confidentiality obligations if there’s an emergency at our shelter.”

Is your agency facing similar difficulties?

Mark your calendar and join us September 9th & 10th in Atlanta, GA for the 2019 National Confidentiality Conference – Strictly Confidential: Protecting Survivor Privacy in Federally Funded Programs!

This training, provided by the National Network to End Domestic Violence and The Confidentiality Institute will help you, as victim service providers, navigate complex federal confidentiality obligations, through in-depth analysis, peer sharing, and scenario problem solving. Participants will explore the many layers of privacy, confidentiality obligations, and technology in a tangible way. Learn how to implement best practices related to privacy and confidentiality while providing survivor-centered services, and how to build strategic relationships with community partners, while respecting your information sharing limitations.

The conference will cover a variety of topics including:

• Mandated reporting

• Community collaborations

• Upholding confidentiality in emergency situations

• Navigating language access and confidentiality

• Handling official third party demands for survivor information

• Selecting and using databases

• Agency use of technology

• Implementing survivor-centered best practices

Attendees will gain a deeper understanding of these issues and will be given resources and tools to better serve survivors. Click this link for a copy of the full agenda.

Can’t wait to see you there!

This conference is OVW approved.

Please contact us with any questions. 

Safety Net 2018: Looking Back and Moving Forward

The Safety Net Project spent 2018 continuing to provide training, technical assistance, and advocacy to the field around the intersection of technology and intimate partner violence. In the coming year, we look forward to implementing new trainings and toolkits and continuing to work with partners and funders to address all the ways technology intersects with safety and privacy for survivors. Here’s a quick look at some of our 2018 accomplishments and some of the good work we have ahead of us in 2019.

Technical Assistance

This year we answered over 1,400 requests for technical assistance, spending 775 hours on technical assistance consultations! The most common requests were related to relocation and privacy issues for survivors, responding to technology misuse, and agency use of tech.  In need of Technical Assistance? Fill out our Technical Assistance request form.

Trainings

In 2018, we spent almost 400 hours providing trainings to victim advocates, legal services organizations, law enforcement officers, technology companies, and other community stakeholders. We had the privilege of providing training to not only U.S. based agencies but also internationally. This included agencies in the UK, Singapore, Australia, and Austria, among others. Trainings we provided covered a wide range of issues at the intersection of technology, safety, and privacy. Safety Net is already scheduling trainings throughout 2019!

Legal Systems Toolkit

In September, we launched the much anticipated Legal Systems Toolkit: Understanding & Investigating Technology Misuse. This toolkit helps legal system stakeholders, including law enforcement, attorneys, court personnel, community corrections, and others identify what technology is relevant to a case and how to use technology evidence to hold offenders accountable.

Annual Tech Summit

This year, we hosted our Technology Summit 2018 in San Francisco with our highest attendance rate to date. We had over 320 participants and a great group of technology company representatives and amazing presenters. We also hosted a closed Women of Color in Technology Reception, a closed meeting for Coalition, Territory, and Tribal Coalitions, and an opening reception with demonstrations from technology companies and stations where participants could try products and learn more about technology and privacy. 

Looking Ahead…

Cyberviolence Court Training Initiative

In Spring 2019 Safety Net, in partnership with the National Council for Juvenile and Family Court Judges, will launch the Cyberviolence Court Training Initiative Judges Workshop. This national training will use a new training curriculum to enhance the skills of judges presiding over cases where there is technology misuse.

Smart Victim Tech Secure Communication Platform

The Smart Victim Tech: Equipping and Empowering Victims through Safe Technology Project is an innovative, multi-pronged approach to advance the use of technology to assist victims of crime. In 2019, the project will be releasing a Digital Services Toolkit, and will fund access to the newly launched ResourceConnect secure communication platform for interested local victim service providers, and will launch a new evidence collection app for survivors.

Team Transitions

Lastly, there were some big team transitions in 2018. We said goodbye to Alex Palacios who continues to do victim services work back in his home state of Arizona. We welcomed back Deputy Director, Kaofeng Lee, who worked for two years with our sister Safety Net project in Australia and Rachel Gibson who worked with the National Center on Reaching Victims. We also welcomed Elaina Roberts, who was formerly with the Stalking Resource Center. Looking ahead, we will welcome our newest and smallest Safety Netter in January with the welcomed addition of our Director, Erica Olsen’s, baby!

As the year ends, we reflect on the gratefulness we have for our supporters, tech advocates, funders, and all who work to end violence. We are also grateful to the survivors and direct service advocates who provide us with feedback to guide our work and make us better. We are looking forward to expanding our work to help enhance safety protections for programs and survivors and what #TechSafety means for all.

Revenge Porn and the Distribution of Sexually Explicit Images: What’s consent have to do with it?

In February, a New York court dismissed a case against a man who posted nude images of his ex-girlfriend online by sharing them on his twitter account and emailing them to her employer and family.  While his actions were reprehensible he faces no punishment because, unfortunately, legal limitations in New York, and many other states, do not currently make what he did criminal. But that is changing.

When sexually explicit images are uploaded online and distributed without consent of the person in the image, it’s often done as a tactic of abuse meant to cause humiliation and harm to the person. Many of these images may have been taken or originally shared with someone else under the expectation of privacy and within a trusting relationship. Some images may have been captured without the victim’s knowledge. In either case, it is an unacceptable violation of trust and privacy. This abuse has been coined “revenge porn,” a term that has been getting a lot of media lately.

Whether the victim willingly took or originally shared the image is irrelevant. Sharing a picture with one person does not mean consent was given for mass, public distribution of the image, and it definitely is not a green light for the person who received the picture to do what they please with it. We make many decisions that can have severe consequences if someone we trusted abused that trust. I can give my neighbors a key to my house and still have a personal and legal expectation that they will not steal from me when I’m not home. I can give a store employee my credit card and expect that will only use the information to finalize the purchase that I have requested. If they do, I am legally protected.

We must stop blaming the victim and start holding abusers accountable in these cases. The person who shared these images with the intent to harm, injure, humiliate, and abuse. By focusing on the victim’s actions and questioning why the victim shared the picture in the first place, as Mary Anne Franks, a law professor at the University of Miami said, "…what we're really saying is if you're sexual with one person, society is entitled to treat you as sexual for all purposes…”

Fortunately, the perception of this behavior is changing, as is the legal landscape around it. Due to the strength and determination of many survivors, states have begun drafting and enacting legislation to address this issue.

Read our new handout on Images, Consent, & Abuse for more detailed information on this issue and tips for survivors. Additional resources can also be found at withoutmyconsent.org. This issue has gained momentum and attention recently as people speak up and speak out. Learn more at the above links and share to continue the conversation.