Commentary

British Groups Warn of Stalking Risk from Social Networks

Social media showcases humanity at its best and its worst, on one hand allowing users to share interests, meet new people, organize for worthy causes, and so on -- but on the other also allowing unbalanced individuals to terrorize victims through stalking.

Two British advocacy groups, Women’s Aid and the Network for Surviving Stalking, have released a report, “Digital Stalking: A guide to technology risks for victims,” warning that the rise of social media, and especially mobile access to social network sites, is enabling a new and particularly dangerous form of stalking. The report calls this “digitally assisted stalking,” distinguishing it from “cyberstalking”: “Today, most stalking now includes a ‘cyber’ or technology aspect. Stalkers who stalk offline will usually assist their activities with some form of technology as a tool, e.g. mobile phones, social networks, computers or geolocation tracking. This can be characterised as ‘digitally assisted stalking’, as opposed to cyberstalking where the perpetrator uses technology but doesn’t stalk the person in the offline world.”

For example, women who use smartphones to check in to social networks may be giving their location away through GPS-tracking spyware installed on the phones by hackers; among other scary possibilities, some easily-installed spyware can also allow stalkers to listen to the phone’s surroundings to deduce exactly where the phone’s owner is located, as well as intercept calls and text messages. The stalker spyware can be installed on computers and smartphones remotely via email attachments, according to the report.

Online commerce and social networks allow even more ingenious (and insidious) stalker strategies. According to the report, one woman neglected to change her eBay password after breaking up with her abusive boyfriend; he was able to track her purchases, contact the online vendors under a customer service pretext, and get her new address from the unwitting eBay members -- resulting in a physical assault.

While social networks claim to have their users’ best interests at heart, the report noted some fundamental contradictions between their business strategies and user safety, as social networks’ “commercial success depends upon encouraging users to exchange information with the widest network possible, which compromises the privacy and security of their users. Indeed, you could argue that it is in their interest not to encourage good privacy practices.”

The report added that this extends to location-sharing check-in services, which are presented in a positive light as a way to keep friends updated on your activities -- glossing over the potential danger of stalkers using the information to locate your whereabouts.

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