Experts call for US legislation to make it easy for domestic abuse victims to leave family phone plans, which can be used by abusers to stalk their victims
who they talk to, their location, everything. https://www.semanticscholar.org/ ... https://twitter.com/... Louise Matsakis / @lmatsakis : Let me tell you about an extremely upsetting & frustrating problem I had no idea existed 1/4 Technology has enabled abusers in many ways. Much of the focus, though, has been on “stalkerware,” apps abusers can use to spy on & harass their victims. https://www.wired.com/... @privacydigest : A Hidden Risk for Domestic Violence Victims: Family Phone Plans Abusers can use shared accounts to stalk and harass victims, and plans aren't always easy to escape. https://www.wired.com/...
The call is explicitly legislative — experts want US law to give victims a clean exit from shared carrier accounts — which moves the issue from product-level fixes (Apple's tracker alerts) to the structure of telecom accounts themselves.
First-order effects
Victims currently on family plans face continued exposure of call records and location data through an account only the abuser controls, while carriers have no mandated path for one line to split off independently.
Advocates shift their ask from individual companies to Congress, making plan portability a policy demand rather than a customer-service discretion.
Second-order effects
Carriers would need to build self-serve line-separation and number-porting flows, turning what is today a support-ticket exception into standard account infrastructure.
The same accountability logic extends to adjacent products already flagged in this coverage — smart home ecosystems and tracking devices — pressuring makers to add victim-controlled exits rather than relying on default settings.
Third-order effects
If legislation lands, it sets a template for 'right to leave' rules across any consumer service built on shared household accounts, from family media plans to connected home hubs.
The pattern across stalkerware, smart home devices, trackers, and now phone plans suggests regulation will increasingly target account architecture — who holds credentials and who can revoke them — rather than individual apps or gadgets.
The trend: Consumer technology designed around shared household accounts is being systematically re-examined as an abuse vector, with lawmakers pushed to guarantee victims an independent exit from every layer — apps, devices, and now the phone plan itself.
2/4 Most abusers don't need fancy apps. They can track their victim's location, call records and more because they're on the same family phone plan. Since they're the account holder, they're in control. https://www.wired.com/...
Intimate partner violence is a widespread issue in the U.S., and the pandemic has only exacerbated it. Sarah St. Vincent, director of Cornell Tech's Clinic to End Tech Abuse, discusses an often overlooked way that abusers exploit tech to track victims. https://www.wired.com/...
For survivors of intimate partner violence, getting locked into a family phone plan can be dangerous. The person who controls the account, oftentimes their abuser, can access a survivor's call records and even the precise location of their device: https://www.wired.com/...
Important story from @lmatsakis. Fundamentally, this is another example of now-routine systems exacerbating terrible societal problems, and lawmakers' failure (or unwillingness) to address them. https://www.wired.com/...
glad to see this written about in this way! growing up in an abusive household, power over the phone plan was a huge lever of control https://twitter.com/...
“Carriers typically charge an early termination fee for canceling a contract before it's over, which can amount to hundreds of dollars. Some survivors can't afford to begin paying for a new device and wireless plan on their own.” https://www.wired.com/... via @wired
“Survivors must deal with highly motivated attackers who have intimate knowledge of their lives. In the physical control phase, attackers also have physical access to the survivors' devices and accounts. There is no one-size-fits-all solution to this type of threat.” https://twit…
We conducted research into security and privacy experiences for survivors of intimate partner abuse. Often through coercion and threats, abusers get a 360 view of what survivors are doing — who they talk to, their location, everything. https://www.semanticscholar.org/ ... https:/…
Let me tell you about an extremely upsetting & frustrating problem I had no idea existed 1/4 Technology has enabled abusers in many ways. Much of the focus, though, has been on “stalkerware,” apps abusers can use to spy on & harass their victims. https://www.wired.com/...
A Hidden Risk for Domestic Violence Victims: Family Phone Plans Abusers can use shared accounts to stalk and harass victims, and plans aren't always easy to escape. https://www.wired.com/...