Digitizing sexual violence: The role of technology in creating and regulating sexual harms

New technologies have changed the way we communicate and produce and relate to images. Smartphones with cameras and easy access to the internet, games, and social media have transformed social spaces, relationships, and norms of (in)appropriate and (il)legal conduct. This development has reshaped sexual violence in two distinct ways. First, technology is being increasingly incorporated into traditional forms of sexual violence, such as when perpetrators take pictures of their victims while assaulting them. Second, technology has contributed to the creation of new forms of sexual harm, such as image-based abuse and deepfake technology. The implications of these developments are twofold. First, the use of technologies as part of harmful sexual conduct offers new possibilities to investigate and prosecute sex crimes in general due to an increased amount of technological evidence. Second, the role of technology in both traditional sexual violence and new forms of sexual harm have instigated a need for legal regulations of these practices. The primary objective of this study is to conceptualize an emerging scientific field at the intersection of law and technology: the technologization of the legal processing of sexual violence and the criminalization of technology-facilitated sexual harms. Secondary objectives include: 1) providing new and policy-relevant knowledge on the potentials and limits of technology in the investigation and prosecution of sexual harms; and 2) understanding how law may protect people from sexual harms. Through a combination of document analysis, qualitative interviews, and surveys, the project contributes to creating new knowledge about the relationship between law and technology in the context of sexual violence.

The relationship between law and technology in relation to sexual violence is changing rapidly and profoundly, creating an urgent need for in-depth analyses on their intersections and interactions. New technologies, such as smart phones and social media platforms, have become vital to social connections; moreover, they have reshaped sexual violence in two distinct ways. First, technology is being increasingly incorporated into traditional forms of sexual violence, such as when perpetrators take pictures of their victims while assaulting them. Second, technology have contributed to the creation of new forms of sexual harm, such as image-based abuse and deepfake technology. The implications of these developments are twofold. First, the use of technologies as part of harmful sexual conduct offers new possibilities to investigate and prosecute sex crimes in general due to an increased amount of technological evidence. Second, the role of technology in both traditional sexual violence and new forms of sexual harm have instigated a need for legal regulations of these practices. The ambition of Digitizing sexual violence is to study how police use new technologies as evidence of sexual violence and how the law regulates sexual harms facilitated by technology. The objective of the study is to conceptualize an emerging scientific field at the intersection of law and technology: the technologization of the legal processing of sexual violence and the criminalization of technology-facilitated sexual harms. The study will focus on three changes organized in separate work packages. Changes in 1) legislation and case law regarding technology-facilitated sexual harms; 2) the investigation and prosecution of sexual violence; 3) people’s knowledge, attitudes and conceptualizations of the use of law in relation to technology-facilitated sexual harms. The highly qualified and interdisciplinary research group consists of early career and accomplished scholars that complement each other.