Mapping the incidence and impact of digitally-enabled coercive control in York and North Yorkshire.
Shining a light on hidden harms in a digital age.
Digital technology is transforming our lives — but it’s also transforming abuse. From location‑sharing apps to smart home devices, everyday tools are increasingly being used to monitor, isolate, and control. Yet these harms often remain unseen, misunderstood, or dismissed.
This project brings together victim‑survivors, police officers, specialist support organisations, and researchers to map the scale, nature, and impact of digitally‑enabled coercive control across York and North Yorkshire.
We’re asking bold questions:
- How widespread is digital coercive control in our region?
- What does it look like in real cases?
- Where are the gaps in policing knowledge and investigative practice?
- How can we strengthen support for victim‑survivors?
- And how do we make sure best practice is shared quickly and consistently?
By combining lived experience, frontline insight, and rigorous research, we aim to drive real change — improving safety, strengthening responses, and ensuring that policing keeps pace with the rapidly evolving technological landscape of domestic abuse.
This is more than a research project. It’s a collaborative effort to understand, prevent, and challenge a form of harm that thrives in the shadows.
Aims and background:
Digitally enabled coercive control is an increasingly urgent concern. The rapid spread of cheap consumer technologies with built‑in surveillance functions —such as doorbell cameras, tracking devices, and location‑sharing apps — is reshaping the landscape of gender‑based violence. These tools create new opportunities for covert monitoring and control within abusive relationships, outpacing the ability of legislation and regulation to respond.
In the UK, a fragmented and inconsistent approach to technology‑facilitated abuse has emerged. This project aims to devise robust, locally grounded insights into how digitally enabled coercive control is experienced, investigated, and addressed across York and North Yorkshire.
