Domestic Violence Urgency: Data Safety and the Intersection of Privacy and Technology

Adrienne N. Spires is CEO of Lapis Analytic Consulting and a Public Voices Fellow on Domestic Violence and Economic Security with The OpEd Project.

“One of these days, Alice, pow! Right in the kisser!”

This is one of the most repeated, famous lines from the 1955-56 TV sitcom, The Honeymooners. It features Jackie Gleason as Ralph Kramden and Audrey Meadows as Alice Kramden. It was a comedic threat by Ralph that implied he would hit Alice, but he did not.

Still, domestic violence is no laughing matter.

The actions of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) are no laughing matter either. DOGE now has access to the confidential personal information of hundreds of thousands of US federal government records on housing discrimination, medical records, and domestic violence from the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Enforcement Management System (HEMS).

Historically, mechanisms were explicitly implemented to protect domestic violence victims from data breaches, seeing that they were protected through HEMS, especially if the person had to flee.

Additionally, the Privacy Act of 1974, 5 USC 552a, provides privacy protections for records containing information about individuals collected and maintained by the federal government and retrieved by a personal identifier.

This raises a moral question and emphasizes that Americans aren’t safe as a nation, especially survivors of domestic violence. It is imperative, as society demands privacy to safeguard victims (who in 85% of cases are women) so their safety isn’t treated as a lower priority.

Domestic violence case files can list addresses to which survivors have relocated for their safety. Domestic violence advocates fought historically for the legal protection of survivors' safety, privacy, and civil rights. The Mississippi Supreme Court ruling in 1824 allowed husbands to administer moderate chastisement in "emergency."

Then, in 1979, 14 states funded domestic violence shelters. For the first time, awards were made available to domestic violence victims under the Victims of Crimes Act in 1988.

Now, those legal gains are compromised or in danger of being erased. The National Network to End Domestic Violence founded The Safety Net Project in 2002, which addresses the interconnection between technology and abuse and its impact on survivors.

With evolving and emerging technology, perpetrators can abuse their victims quickly and continuously and are difficult to track. Technologies include cell phones, global positioning systems (GPS), smart home technology, social media platforms, hidden cameras, and micro-tracking devices readily available from major phone manufacturers. This technology can add to the convenience of current and evolving abusive behaviors, and the victim may feel a lack of privacy.

According to the Office of Family Violence Prevention and Services, 38% of all domestic violence victims become homeless at some point in their lives.

Safety Net hosts its annual Technology Summit in July this year in the heart of Silicon Valley. It is traditionally attended by victim advocates, law enforcement officers, legal service providers, prosecutors, technologists, and other professionals from around the globe.

Silicon Valley has been coined the global center for high technology and innovation. According to the current White House administration, members of the DOGE team are technology geniuses. Silicon Valley's favorable relationship with the Department of Defense confirms that it knows the potential dangers of confidential and secure information being exposed.

With the billions invested in Silicon Valley, it is essential to be as conscious as possible and invest in the same level of safety and security for domestic violence victims and survivors. If not, this will be more than perpetuation of the US as a culture of intimate partner violence and victim-blaming; it is a clear validation that survivors are not protected.

History reveals that taking away one group’s rights will lead to another group’s demise.

This is similar to the sentiment in “First They Came: The Poem of Protest” by Pastor Martin Niemöller. He wrote: “First they came for…/ And I did not speak out/ Then they came for me/And there was no one left/ To speak out for me.”

It is critical for as many as possible to protest the failure to protect the digital safety of individuals—for everyone’s sake.

Policymakers, advocates, leaders, community members, survivors, and family members must address this extremely serious catastrophe to rectify it.