Care Infrastructures for Digital Security in Intimate Partner Violence

Abstract

Survivors of intimate partner violence (IPV) face complex threats to their digital privacy and security. Prior work has established protocols for directly helping them mitigate these harms; however, there remains a need for flexible and pluralistic systems that can support survivors' long-term needs. This paper describes the design and development of sociotechnical infrastructure that incorporates feminist notions of care to connect IPV survivors experiencing technology abuse with volunteer computer security consultants. We present findings from a mixed methods study that draws on data from an 8-month, real-world deployment, as well as interviews with 7 volunteer technology consultants and 18 IPV professionals. Our findings illuminate emergent challenges in safely and adaptively providing computer security advice as care. We discuss implications of these findings for feminist approaches to computer security and privacy, and provide broader lessons for interventions that aim to directly assist at-risk and marginalized people experiencing digital insecurity.