Maureen’s ex installed microphones in the vents of her house to listen in on her conversations. He placed GPS trackers on her car and sent virus-infected emails to her friend’s workplace. He stalked their children online. Their daughter’s bank card was compromised.
But when Maureen tried to let the police know, they didn’t do much, even though there was already a protection order in place. Abuse in online and digital spaces simply wasn’t on their radar in terms of effective enforcement.
“It’s a battle with the whole system — counsellors, police — and people look at you like you’re crazy because they can’t believe it’s happening,” explains Maureen, who only uses her first name and coordinates outreach for Women Against Violence Empowering Survivors (WAVES), a Hamilton group for survivors of violence against women.
“It’s only recently that there’s been some acknowledgement of it.”
“It” is technology-facilitated gender-based violence, or TFGBV: the use of digital tools — like social media, messaging apps or smart devices — to harass, cyberstalk, intimidate or threaten women and gender-diverse people.
It’s not a new problem, but it is becoming more and more frequent, with frontline staff in the gender-based violence (GBV) sector scrambling to help women stay safe, not just in real life, but online as well.
And while frontline staff in gender-based violence prevention organizations like women’s shelters and advocacy groups are at the forefront of responding to TFGBV, that experience is largely ignored by law enforcement, policymakers, and researchers, says Alexis-Carlota Cochrane, a PhD candidate in McMaster’s Department of Communications Studies and Media Arts.
“Service providers are learning on the fly what to do — teaching people how to turn off any potential surveillance, how to get new phone numbers or new Apple IDs to avoid their accounts potentially being linked to abusive intimate partners,” explains Cochrane, who was also co-author on a first-of-its-kind report on TFGBV for the Canadian Women’s Foundation in 2025.
“We’ve seen that the gender-based violence sector are experts within the fields of digital harm, but they’re rarely credited that way and they’re not set up with the infrastructure to allow for that knowledge to flourish.”
Now, that issue is at the forefront of a new report, Supporting Survivors of Digital Harm: Findings from Hamilton, Ontario’s Gender-Based Violence Sector, co-authored by Cochrane and McMaster Social Work PhD graduate Maddie Brockbank, now an assistant professor of Social Work at the University of Windsor.
Funded by a Community Catalyst Grant from McMaster’s Office of Community Engagement and working with a group of community consultants from Hamilton representing gender-based violence prevention organizations, Cochrane and Brockbank wanted to assess how service providers were supporting survivors and what gaps they faced in terms of resources, training and systemic supports.
Working directly with community organizations was essential to ensure that the project was actually helpful, rather than simply an academic exercise with no impact, Cochrane says.
“We’re interested in research no matter what, but we wanted to make that what we were doing could better serve the community,” says Cochrane.
“We had initially pitched a toolkit, and we thought that was a great idea. And they said, no, we don’t want a toolkit. We want the research that we can present to funders to demonstrate that this is an area of need for us — something that grounds the request in empirical evidence.”
One of the community groups that contributed to the report was the Women’s Abuse Working Group (WAWG), which runs WAVES. And that was how Cochrane and Brockbank came to know Maureen, and learn her story of digital abuse and harassment at the hands of her ex.
“[Cochrane and Brockbank] were presenting at one of the WAWG meetings, and naturally I was there — technological abuse, in a warped way, is such a passion of mine because my children and I experienced it to such an extreme from my ex,” Maureen explains.
“I talked to them about considering the survivor’s point of views, and that’s how we connected.”
Other community groups contributing to the report included Interval House of Hamilton, the Sexual Assault Centre (Hamilton and Area), better known locally as SACHA, and Mission Services Hamilton.
Their report came to some sobering conclusions: Technology is a central way for abusers to extend and intensify gender-based violence, and the rise of artificial intelligence is making that worse, especially among young people.
Frontline workers are still under-resourced when addressing TFGBV and lack safety resources, while survivors are faced with disbelief and minimization from police and other systems even while their expertise is ignored developing training, policy and resources.
But while the current findings highlight increasing violence in digital spaces, an ongoing scramble to keep up with changing technology, and chronic underfunding and undertraining, there is hope — and possible ways forward.
Together, Cochrane, Brockbank and their collaborators have also come up with a series of recommendations that range from ensuring access to training and collaboration, to recognizing and engaging with survivors and organizations as experts in digital violence, to ensuring stable sources of funding and support.
At its core, the report is a powerful tool for sharing knowledge — among academics, among practitioners, among survivors, and among policymakers.
“I value knowledge sharing and updating, as technology is always adapting and updating as well,” says Sharan Kaur, the director of violence against women services with Mission Services of Hamilton.
“I believe this report assists with guiding updates of policy and practice, and can support interdisciplinary teams in supporting clients with complex forms of abuse.”
With more knowledge comes the possibility of change, says Brockbank.
“There’s a lot of doom and gloom, but there are also pockets of hope,” she says. “One of our partners sent us an email saying the report is already making an impact. They’re developing training informed by the report right now for new Hamilton Police Service recruits.
“I think it’s a real win that our report is already being mobilized, and that’s exactly what Alexis and I wanted. We did not want this to sit on Google Scholar and never be looked at again.”
If you or someone you know is experiencing gender-based violence, go to the Woman Abuse Working Group’s website for a list of community resources.