Dr. Thomas Kadri, whose research focuses on law and technology with an emphasis on technology-enabled abuse, has been advising the office of U.S. Senator Brian Schatz (D-HI), co-sponsor of the Safe Connections Act, on the text of the law, which the bill’s co-sponsors are trying to attach to the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA). Dr. Kadri is available to media to speak on this topic. Below are a few snippets of his thoughts:
Why is the Safe Connections Act needed?
According to the Center for Disease Control, tens of millions of Americans have survived physical violence, contact sexual violence, or stalking by an intimate partner. A major vulnerability for many of these victims is being unable to effectively escape due to the amount of information shared on family plans with cell phone carriers. If passed, the Safe Connections Act could provide survivors with a safer and easier path to escape their abuse.
What do recent proposed changes from wireless industry trade group CTIA mean for survivors of domestic abuse?
A law seeking to help survivors must be not only effective but also empathetic to survivors’ experiences. CTIA’s proposed changes would undermine the Safe Connections Act on both fronts. First, by introducing a new liability immunity for phone companies, CTIA’s changes would prevent the FCC from enforcing the Act’s protections, creating a law promising survivors legal rights of confidentiality and line separation but lacking any remedy if phone companies breach their legal duties. Second, by requiring survivors to provide so-called “account establishment information,” CTIA would introduce ambiguity into the bill that might allow phone companies to establish a new account in the survivor’s name, possibly creating a loophole that would bypass the Act’s protections.
What needs to be done to protect survivors?
To be both effective and empathetic, the Safe Connections Act should allow survivors to make a clean break from their abusers with minimal barriers and risks. Survivors would already be forced to provide phone companies with abundant personal information under the current bill, and the FCC is currently the only entity empowered to hold companies accountable for violating the law. Accepting CTIA’s demands would jeopardize the entire bill, discouraging survivors from invoking its protections and undermining their privacy and safety if they do.
Contact Dr. Kadri via email at tek@uga.edu.