Research into modern-day domestic abuse ad digital coercive control: Focus on how a framework could assist stakeholders with technical evidence gathering in order to incriminate abusers

Abstract

The motivation for the project is to add value to existing literature surrounding domestic abuse and digital coercive behavior in the era of the Internet of Things. Focus is put on creating a framework to assist law-enforcement stakeholders with incriminating abusers and to provide suggestions on how to improve the safety of domestic-abuse victims when it comes to smart home devices. Stakeholders of IoT devices are listed and suggestions regarding the security of devices has been provided. The suggestions have been put against real life case studies to show how they could have prevented a similar situation from happening. The framework that was then created has the ideal scenario step-by-step guidance on how police could assist victims when a crime is reported, particularly if the suggested changes were made to the devices. The aim of this research is to have a framework and the suggestions in place to help victims to feel safer in their own homes. The suggestions do not come without their negative side as having to take into account any new regulations would require going through government processes and with the security of IoT devices already under scrutiny, it would be a lengthy process for the vendors to implement certain new features on the devices. This is something that future work could definitely take a look into.