Remote Control

Abusive partners and exes are hijacking victims’ smartphones to instil a new level of fear in domestic abuse cases. Sirin Kale investigates the rise of digital stalking.

Instagam was the first place that Zara*, a 35-year-old writer, noticed her boyfriend Gary’s controlling behaviour. ‘He’d dictate what was and wasn’t acceptable for me to post,’ she explains. ‘I wasn’t allowed to post pictures of my face if he thought it was a “vanity selfie” or anything deemed racy.’ He’d message Zara after she posted, telling her that she was ‘fake’ or fire off jealous, accusatory WhatsApp messages if she posted a photo while on a night out with friends. Even after they split and Gary moved abroad, he continued to stalk Zara via social media. ‘One awful day last year, he sent me a barrage of abuse on every channel possible − Facebook, Instagram, Linked-In. He even sent abusive messages to a guy I’d once dated and set up puppet accounts to watch my Instagram stories. I became so anxious that I needed beta-blockers to sleep at night, and I was constantly fearful of what I did online.’

An estimated five million people a year experience some form of stalking, and up to 73 per cent of cases involve digital stalking**, with the majority of victims (80 per cent) being women. ‘We live our lives online now, leaving a digital trace of everything we do and everywhere we go,’ says Laura Richards, founder of anti-stalking charity Paladin, which regularly supports victims of digital abuse. ‘That’s a challenge, as it provides further means for stalkers to track their victims.’ Even though digital harassment continues to rise, the Suzy Lamplugh Trust estimates only nine per cent of people who experience it recognise it as a crime and report it to the police − meaning the true scale of digital stalking may be unknown. As a result, campaigners are pushing for the introduction of a stalking register, much like the sex offenders’ register, to protect women from repeat offenders.