A Year of Safety Net: Supporting Survivor Safety in a Rapidly Changing Digital World

As we close out 2025, one thing is clear: this has been a year of both emerging technology and ample conversation surrounding it. The “architects of AI” were named TIME’s Person of the Year, and ‘slop’, defined as low-quality AI-generated content, was Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Year. From how we communicate and work to how we seek help and build community, technology is now inseparable from the human experience. For victims and survivors of domestic and sexual violence, this reality brings both risk and opportunity. The same tools that connect us can be misused to cause harm, but they can also serve as lifelines when designed and used with care.

Over the past year, Safety Net’s work at the National Network to End Domestic Violence (NNEDV) has been grounded in this understanding. In a rapidly shifting landscape, our focus has remained steady: helping survivors, advocates, policymakers, and industry professionals respond to change in ways that center survivor safety, privacy, autonomy, and dignity. Rather than reacting to each new development in isolation, we have worked to build practical guidance, durable partnerships, and comprehensive frameworks that can keep pace with innovation and shape it for the better.

This year’s work reflects both the scale of the moment and the power of collaboration. At a time of rapid technological change, we are proud of the guidance and support Safety Net has provided under the leadership of Erica Olsen, NNEDV’s Assistant Vice President of Programs & Partnerships, and Audace Garnett, Director of Safety Net, and we remain deeply committed to continuing this work alongside advocates, partners, and survivors globally.

Expanding Survivor-Centered Guidance on Technology-Facilitated Abuse

Throughout the year, Safety Net continued to support advocates and programs responding to technology-facilitated abuse across all backgrounds and walks of life: from teens navigating online dating and social media, to older survivors experiencing technology abuse later in life, to specific survivor communities across the nation. Under our ongoing Office on Violence Against Women (OVW) and Office for Victims of Crime (OVC) federal awards, as well as private funder support, together we developed and released a wide range of practical resources and learning tools, including multiple e-learning modules on identifying, assessing, and safety-planning for technology-facilitated abuse (available in English and Spanish), blogs and op-eds tied to national awareness moments, and survivor-facing guidance through resources like the Teens and Tech Toolkit on topics like safer dating profiles, online dating warning signs, location sharing, and digital privacy.

We also continued our celebrated Tech Talks series, releasing new sessions on topics such as digital sharing and technology abuse, the intersection of trafficking and technology, identity theft after abuse, and the impacts of AI on survivor safety and privacy. In doing so, we equipped advocates and partners with timely, accessible explanations of complex and emerging harms, as well as best practices to navigate these situations.

Addressing NCII, Image-Based Abuse, and AI-Driven Harms

As image-based sexual abuse and nonconsensual intimate imagery (NCII) continue to evolve, including through AI-generated nonconsensual intimate imagery and “nudification” apps, so too has federal response to this pervasive form of abuse. In May, the TAKE IT DOWN Act was signed into law, establishing nationwide protections for victims of image-based sexual abuse.

Safety Net has expanded its work in this arena across multiple quarters. As co-chairs of the NCII Multistakeholder Working Group with the Center for Democracy & Technology (CDT), NNEDV has served as a convener of tech companies, researchers, and advocates at the helm of addressing NCII harms and has significantly guided the development of industry standards for interventions to combat nonconsensual intimate images. This work has also included blogs and trainings focused on raising awareness and educating survivors of their options in the face of this abuse.

We have also deepened our work addressing the growing role of AI in survivors’ lives, including by publishing analysis on issues like chatbot data retention, hosting office hours on confidentiality and AI, and integrating AI-related risks into our annual Tech Summit. In parallel, we focused on practical guidance, publishing both an advocates’ guide and a survivor-facing guide to support safer, more informed use of AI tools.

Across this work, Safety Net has remained focused on ensuring that emerging tools are examined through a survivor-centered lens, especially where “innovation” may outpace meaningful policy or safeguards.

Training, Technical Assistance, and Real-Time Problem Solving

Across the year, Safety Net delivered dozens of trainings and webinars and provided ongoing technical assistance (TA) to thousands of advocates, legal professionals, technologists, and service providers nationwide. These sessions addressed topics ranging from confidentiality and digital services to stalkerware, databases, human trafficking, agency technology use, and responding to complex partnerships involving new tools or platforms.

Importantly, this work often extended beyond one-off trainings: Safety Net continued to engage in in-depth, ongoing TA consultations with programs navigating complicated technology implementation decisions or confidentiality concerns and has remained a trusted source of support to advocates and survivors domestically and internationally.

In July, we hosted our Virtual Tech Summit 2025, marking 25 years of Safety Net’s work at the intersection of technology and domestic violence. With nearly 500 registered participants and sessions spanning AI, NCII, online dating, stalkerware, industry partnerships, and survivor-centered response strategies, the Summit served as both a moment of reflection and a moment of hope for the advocacy we continue to champion.

Partnering to Build Safer Systems

Throughout the year, Safety Net continued to engage with technology companies, policymakers, and cross-sector partners to improve safety by design and response practices. We provided advisory expertise to companies including Airbnb, Amazon, Apple, Google, Meta, Norton, ReloShare, and Uber; participated extensively in safety advisory board meetings and ongoing conversations about product updates, launches, and risk mitigation; and leveraged our convening power to share actionable, survivor-centered strategy with industry leaders.

These partnerships also produced tangible outcomes. This year marked the successful completion of three years of the Ring Donation Program for Domestic Violence Survivors, with an expanded total of 15,000 devices made available nationwide. We recently began our fourth year and have already seen over 8,000 devices distributed to local programs in mere weeks.

We also announced a new partnership with ReloShare, providing 12 months of free access to The Grove, a real-time, national shelter availability platform, to every domestic violence, sexual assault, and human trafficking shelter program in the country.

At the policy level, Safety Net played an active role in shaping survivor-centered technology policy at both the state and federal levels. Throughout the year, we supported the drafting and refinement of multiple legislative proposals focused on tech safety and abuse prevention. We also engaged at the agency level: in determining whether to weaken or vacate its landmark order against a stalkerware company, the Federal Trade Commission relied on and quoted Safety Net’s public comment, which offered instructive guidance and subject-matter expertise on the need for strong accountability measures to prevent stalking and abuse.

Looking Ahead: Deepening and Sustaining the Work

In our ongoing efforts to scale our momentum in the fight against technology-facilitated abuse, Safety Net is launching a new Digital Safety & Justice Initiative, which will expand nationwide support for survivors experiencing image-based abuse, harassment, and other forms of digital violence over the next three years. This initiative, supported by OVC, reflects both the urgency of the work and the trust placed in Safety Net’s survivor-centered approach.

Gratitude, Rest, and the Year Ahead

Of course, none of this work happens in isolation. We are deeply grateful to the advocates, coalitions, survivors, partners, and funders who support Safety Net’s work, whether through collaboration on resources and guidance, or sustained investment in our long-term capacity building.

The broader environment remains demanding, and the work ahead will continue to require persistence and dedicated effort. As we enter the holiday season, we hope this time offers everyone moments of rest and connection, both of which are essential to sustaining this movement.

As we look to the year ahead, we invite you to continue following and engaging with Safety Net’s work, sharing our resources with your networks, and staying connected as we build safer systems alongside survivors. If you’re able, we also encourage you to consider supporting NNEDV’s work so that Safety Net can continue showing up for survivors and advocates navigating technology-facilitated abuse every day.

From all of us at Safety Net, we wish you a safe and restorative holiday season, and we look forward to continuing this work together in the year ahead!

In peace, love, and safety,

The Safety Net team – Audace, Belle, Erica, Jessie, Laisa, Sam, and Shalini