Keeping women safe in their home
Technology-facilitated abuse is a growing contributor to violence against women, with perpetrators increasingly using technology to monitor, stalk and control a victim’s movements.
Through the Keeping Women Safe in their Home initiative, we trialled a range of new and emerging technologies to:
- help improve the safety of women and their children escaping domestic and family violence (DFV)
- enable them to remain in their own homes following the completion of a comprehensive risk assessment as part of a safety plan.
The trials were conducted in 4 locations:
- Cairns
- Rockhampton
- Ipswich
- Caboolture.
Technologies trialled included:
- personal duress alarms with 24/7 monitoring through an external security service
- CCTV home security cameras linked to devices to record data
- victim-focused smartphone technology applications
- training and support to raise awareness about technology-facilitated abuse among trial participants
- electronic sweeps, scans and debugging of victims’ homes and belongings for surveillance technology.
The initiative also involved:
- research and place-based trials of safety security upgrades of specific benefit to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander victims of DFV
- a project to deliver better outcomes for victims of DFV accessing the private rental market.
The initiative was funded under the Australian Government’s Women’s Safety Package and complements other actions we are implementing to deliver on recommendation 86 in the Not now, not ever report.