In this month’s Global Social Challenges focus, we spotlight our author Briony Anderson, whose work examines the rising threat of digital violence and privacy abuse –an issue at the heart of this year’s International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women. As the global campaign draws attention to digital violence as a rapidly escalating form of gender-based harm, we invited the author of Doxxed: How Privacy Abuse Harms to reflect on how the digital realm has become a frontline in the struggle for women’s and gender-diverse people’s safety.
Women, girls and gender-diverse people are experiencing more threats to their personal information and digital safety than ever before. According to a United Nations report, nearly half of the women and girls in the world – 1.8 billion – do not have legal protections from digital violence.
As the 16 Days of Activism to End Digital Violence begins today, it’s important to highlight that digital violence leverages personal information and privacy abuse in uniquely gendered ways.
What is doxxing and why is it a gendered privacy abuse?
Doxxing is a form of privacy abuse in which the personal, identifying and sensitive information about a person is disclosed without their consent.
Privacy and autonomy over personal data uniquely intersects with the risks and challenges facing women, girls and gender-diverse people, such as cyber-located sexual violence, image-based abuse and AI-generated sexual digital forgeries.
Trans women and gender-diverse people are especially vulnerable to digital abuse as anti-DEI policies and transphobic hate speech are emboldened.
Digital surveillance and the erosion of bodily autonomy
Thinking about the unique challenges to personal information faced by women, girls and gender-diverse people brings to mind reflections on health and bodily autonomy.
We are seeing a regression of personal data rights for women and girls, particularly in their autonomy to manage health and medical information about themselves.
Period tracking apps which feed metadata to mega corporations, the use of digital tracking to surveil people seeking abortion care in the United States, new policing powers in the United Kingdom which permit officers to seize personal mobile devices in cases of late-stage miscarriages: tactics of digital surveillance are being normalised and mobilised to inhibit bodily autonomy over personal medical information.
This has serious and enduring implications for the digital autonomy of women and girls to make decisions about their personal information now and in the future.
How privacy abuse targets trans women and gender-diverse people
Trans women and gender-diverse people are vulnerable to unique forms of privacy abuse which target the ways they are known, and the autonomy they have to be out in the contexts and to the people of their choosing.
Practices of outing, deadnaming and misgendering trans women and gender-diverse people online are not only techniques of harassment, but expressions of hatred which highlight the intersections of transphobia and misogyny. Experiencing transphobic hate speech and digital intrusions online is widely reported by trans women and gender-diverse people.
Privacy abuse of trans women and gender-diverse people not only poses a risk to their physical safety but denies them the agency to share sensitive information relating to their gender identity on their own terms and timelines.
As anti-trans sentiments move from rhetoric to policy changes, it’s vital that we consider how trans women and gender-diverse people are vulnerable to the abuse of their privacy and personal information online.
The unique risks facing girls and young people
Privacy harms are intersectional and reflect the gendered and relational nuances of our personal information. In addition to thinking about how gender shapes privacy abuse, it’s especially important to consider how girls and young people are vulnerable to unique intrusions on their digital safety.
The Children’s Commissioner has recently cautioned that nudification tools that use generative AI to create sexually explicit images of children pose an unacceptable risk to girls, who are more likely to be targeted. This reflects findings from Australia, which highlighted that girls were more likely than boys to experience image-based doxxing before they were 18 years old.
These conclusions add an additional layer to the intersectional harms of privacy abuse. How might girls and young people develop healthy digital social practices when their autonomy over personal information is stripped from them at such an early age?
Why intersectional activism is essential during the 16 Days of Activism
As the 16 Days of Activism against digital gender-based violence begins on the 25 November, we need to ask ourselves who our activism serves.
While many Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) strategies do make efforts to engage with the perspectives of young people, we need to ensure that girls and young people are not just consulted but centred in efforts to combat digital violence.
At a time of growing precarity for trans people, activism against digital gender-based violence must be intersectional and must meaningfully grapple with the unique threats to personal information faced by trans women and gender-diverse people.
Protecting informational autonomy: A path toward digital safety
Our personal information is of us – it contains our histories, unique identifiers, records of who we are and how we’ll be in the future. Abuse of this information disrupts not only the possibilities for digital freedom of expression and participation in the present, but also impedes the choices and possibilities of how we might be in the future.
These harms are serious and complex, but pathways to protection and resistance are possible. Affirming what is expansive, relational and connecting about our personal information gives us a new frame of reference to understanding privacy harms – it helps us to articulate what is worth protecting and advocating for.
Addressing digital gender-based violence for all people will require not only policy and legal responses, but an affirmative ethics of care for informational autonomy.
Briony Anderson is a Career Development Fellow in the Department of Sociology at Durham University. She researches the impacts of digital violence and privacy abuse, and is the author of the forthcoming book Doxxed: How Privacy Abuse Harms.
Part of Bristol University Press Technology, Data and Society and Equity, Diversity and Inclusion themes, Doxxed: How Privacy Abuse Harms responds to the Gender Equality and Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions SDGs. Available for £85.00 on the Bristol University Press website here.
Bristol University Press/Policy Press newsletter subscribers receive a 25% discount – sign up here.
Follow Transforming Society so we can let you know when new articles publish.
The views and opinions expressed on this blog site are solely those of the original blog post authors and other contributors. These views and opinions do not necessarily represent those of the Policy Press and/or any/all contributors to this site.
Image credit: Gage Walker via Unsplash