Experts say domestic abusers increasingly use connected home devices like smart locks, security cameras, and lighting to scare or spy on victims
SAN FRANCISCO — The people who called into the help hotlines and domestic violence shelters said they felt as if they were going crazy.
Context & Ripple Effects
This 2018 report is the earliest data point in a pattern the coverage keeps confirming: shelters and hotlines were already hearing from victims who felt watched and locked down inside their own homes, with smart locks, cameras, and lighting named as the instruments. What looked then like an emerging tactic has since hardened into a recognized category of tech-assisted abuse, with later reporting extending it from home devices to tracking hardware like AirTags.
First-order effects
- Domestic violence shelters and hotline workers now need device-level expertise — auditing shared accounts, resetting smart locks, checking camera access — because victims' physical security depends on who controls the connected home.
- Victims face a concrete dilemma the coverage documents: the same devices that make a home convenient also give an abusive partner remote leverage over entry, visibility, and light.
Second-order effects
- Device makers and platform owners are pushed toward anti-abuse features by default — the AirTags coverage shows built-in protections exist but fail when the victim is not on the manufacturer's ecosystem, exposing how fragmented safety is across vendors.
- Advocates shift from shelter services to structural fixes, as in the push for US legislation letting victims easily exit family phone plans abusers use to stalk them — account portability becoming a safety issue rather than a billing one.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, consumer IoT design acquires a safety-review layer analogous to privacy review: products shipped without considering coercive-control misuse become regulatory and reputational liabilities, consistent with the argument that the digital world was never designed to keep women safe.
- Abuse response moves from physical refuge toward digital forensics — separating shared accounts, devices, and location data becomes a standard step in leaving a relationship, reshaping what shelters, lawyers, and platforms must provide.
The trend: Consumer connected devices are being absorbed into domestic abuse faster than product safety design or legislation can respond, turning account architecture into a frontline of victim protection.