As Detective Kelly Downey unravels the haunting narrative of "Christine," a woman ensnared by her spouse through her car's GPS, we confront the sobering reality of tech-enabled abuse. Our discussion with digital safety expert Adam Dodge ventures beyond physical violence to expose the psychological and technological warfare waged in abusive relationships. This episode strips bare the complexities of car stalking and the severe implications for victims' safety, questioning the accountability of car companies and the effectiveness of current legislation in protecting those at risk.
Peeling back the layers of vehicle tracking apps, we reveal the unsettling truth about modern stalking tactics, where abusers exploit the very tools meant to provide convenience and security. Our conversation takes a critical look at the automotive industry's privacy practices, or lack thereof, and the obstacles law enforcement face when seeking cooperation from tech giants. We spotlight the bold steps necessary to safeguard personal privacy in an era where technology can be both an ally and an adversary.
In response to the pervasive threat of digital harassment, we share innovative strategies and resources that offer victims a lifeline. Encrypted messaging and vigilant digital hygiene become shields against abusers, while legislative strides in phone number portability present a beacon of hope.
As Detective Kelly Downey unravels the haunting narrative of "Christine," a woman ensnared by her spouse through her car's GPS, we confront the sobering reality of tech-enabled abuse. Our discussion with digital safety expert Adam Dodge ventures beyond physical violence to expose the psychological and technological warfare waged in abusive relationships. This episode strips bare the complexities of car stalking and the severe implications for victims' safety, questioning the accountability of car companies and the effectiveness of current legislation in protecting those at risk.
Peeling back the layers of vehicle tracking apps, we reveal the unsettling truth about modern stalking tactics, where abusers exploit the very tools meant to provide convenience and security. Our conversation takes a critical look at the automotive industry's privacy practices, or lack thereof, and the obstacles law enforcement face when seeking cooperation from tech giants. We spotlight the bold steps necessary to safeguard personal privacy in an era where technology can be both an ally and an adversary.
In response to the pervasive threat of digital harassment, we share innovative strategies and resources that offer victims a lifeline. Encrypted messaging and vigilant digital hygiene become shields against abusers, while legislative strides in phone number portability present a beacon of hope.
The subject matter of this podcast will address difficult topics multiple forms of violence and identity based discrimination and harassment. We acknowledge that this content may be difficult and have listed specific content warnings in each episode description to help create a positive, safe experience for all listeners.
Speaker 2:In this country, 31 million crimes 31 million crimes are reported every year. That is one every second. Out of that, every 24 minutes there is a murder. Every five minutes there is a rape. Every two to five minutes there is a sexual assault. Every nine seconds in this country, a woman is assaulted by someone who told her that he loved her, by someone who told her it was her fault, by someone who tries to tell the rest of us it's none of our business and I am proud to stand here today with each of you to call that perpetrator a liar.
Speaker 1:Welcome to the podcast on crimes against women. I'm Maria McMullen. Up until about 30 to 40 years ago, the limited definition of domestic violence and responses to it allowed unfettered abuse to flourish. Offenders went unpunished and victims struggled to achieve rescue or remedy because law enforcement did not consider domestic violence to be a civil issue, rather a criminal one, meaning a normal spat or conflict between husband and wife could be resolved within the home, not the criminal justice system. Moreover, in decades past, domestic violence was narrowly acknowledged only when there was blatant physical evidence of extreme harm or impending death. Today, the domestic violence definition has broadened significantly, recognizing myriad of abusive scenarios that are no longer just physical but psychological, emotional, financial and now technological.
Speaker 1:The digital revolution that we are currently experiencing threatens to destabilize the momentous progress made within the domestic violence movement. With software apps, devices and tools developing so rapidly and getting into the hands of abusers so easily, the victim's safety becomes perilous. Cyber stalking leads the pack in terms of abusive tactics and has grown into being a ubiquitous horror, allowing offenders to exact abuse or violence against their victims without ever being in their presence. Within this ecosystem, the auto industry contributes to these dangers by equipping cars with tracking systems that can be utilized by abusers to strike fear and terror in victims and create massive challenges for service providing entities that fight every day to keep them safe. Joining us today is Adam Dodge, a former attorney and current digital safety expert in California, and Kelly Downey, a detective within the Beaux Chaudhary Paris Sheriff's Office in Louisiana. Adam and Kelly, welcome to the podcast, thank you.
Speaker 3:Thanks for having us.
Speaker 1:It's great to be with you and we're going to talk about a case today that explores the intersection of really technology and domestic violence, or safety, or violence against women. And so, detective, I would like to begin with you, because the case that we're going to talk about involves a woman who fled an abusive marriage and was tracked by her abusive spouse through her car's GPS system. Let's talk about that case. What can you tell us about the case and how did you and Adam connect over this topic?
Speaker 4:OK. So in late 2022, and I'm just going to call her Christine fled from South Louisiana in Tuboja Parish after a bout of physical violence. She had fled prior to even making a case of a report with that local law enforcement. So I then opened up, was called an agency assist. Our agency is very blessed with fabulous technology. We did, at that point, als photograph her as well as to a written statement, aided her with a temporary restraining order. That case was then sent down into that jurisdiction and they picked up the physical abuse from there. Fast forward, the very beginning, like beginning in most protective order by violations. You know she had to begin receiving text messages in both parties, having Apple Text messages don't go through your carrier, it goes through Apple.
Speaker 4:So, that's one search warrant Fast forward. She started getting some different messages to display screen on her vehicle and that's when the absolute wall of brick walls, of all brick walls, began and continue to fast forward after just not being able to go around through or anything else of the brick walls. I attended the Crimes Against Women's Conference, which I do many, many, many years. I attended all of the stalking classes that was available last year to see if any of the presenters and the other law enforcement agencies, anybody had had any type of luck of being able to come over this brick wall Last day, last class out of dodge, and at that point I did apologize to him yesterday.
Speaker 4:I was my complete level of frustration. I was like I apologize now if I seem like I was just super aggressive. I probably wasn't, but I felt aggressive because it has just been something that I've not been able to get over. You know, through the investigation I had reached out to Crimes Against Women, iccr, I reached out to searchorg, I reached out to our Attorney General's office and everybody saying this is going to require federal legislation. And why is that? Because on the vehicles themselves, on this particular case, the owner of the vehicle was my offender. Even though Louisiana is a community property state, he was the registered owner of the vehicle.
Speaker 1:Help us understand the requirements of the federal law in this case.
Speaker 4:So and reaching out to Mercedes, their answer to not only to the victim herself, because she had reached out to him more than a dozen times I reached out to him more than a dozen times and the answer was he's the registered owner. And at one point one of the four little sweet customer service ladies said why don't you call him and ask him to delete the app? And that actually gave a very forward response for me was oh OK, because the judge hasn't already demanded that he not abuse, arrest, stalk, follow, track, monitor what she's doing with your app.
Speaker 1:So because he owns the car, he can do it every once with it, meaning that even though she, from what I understand about this case, she received it as part of the divorce settlement. Is that correct?
Speaker 4:So in the initial temporary restraining order we had asked for use of the car, but also in the divorce proceedings several. A couple of months later she received sole and exclusive use of the car. So she was driving the car and paying for the car. But it took several months for us to get the actual, you know, order from the courts of sole and exclusive use. You know, trying to circumvent the Mercedes deal itself, Wow, that is very complex.
Speaker 1:It seems so simple, but it's actually a very complicated situation, Adam the onset and advancement of technology that's occurring so rapidly. I know it's utilized by both law enforcement and service providers, but it's also utilized by criminal offenders, just like this particular case. How pervasive is this type of stalking through a car app?
Speaker 3:Well, I'll give you a very lawyerly answer, which is it depends. It's hard to tell, because one of the challenges here is that most victims don't even know what's happening. Most victims are completely unaware that their car even has an app, which most new models do now, and so they can't tell us that they're being stalked if they don't know that it's happening. But I can tell you anecdotally, because there's not any statistics or research on this yet is that I'm hearing about this all the time.
Speaker 3:I train organizations around the country and every single one of them has dealt with this in some way, shape or form where the car itself is the tracking device and you can't turn off the location tracking like you could with a phone. You can't ditch a car and get a new car like you would a phone, which is frankly not very easy to do for victims and survivors with limited means in the first place. So it really creates this imbalance of power, with victims and the people monitoring them without their consent, because victims rely on these cars to survive and thrive, but right now they're doing so with the knowledge that they could be followed or monitored and there's very little they can do about it.
Speaker 1:So let's talk about these apps, because I have all these ideas in my head of what could possibly be done. I know I'm not here to. I'm here to tell the story, not solve the problem, so I'll let you experts solve the problem. As a digital safety expert, what are the ways in which abusers are using apps, and specifically apps that interface with car features, to stalk or harass victims? How does this work? Specifically Because I know I have an app for my car and then my husband has an app for his car and my son has an app for his car. And, yeah, they can see. We can see where each other are located at any time of the day, and that's a safety precaution for us as a family. So you're saying you can never turn this off.
Speaker 1:Well through the car app. You can never turn off. Who can see you?
Speaker 3:So, again, it depends on the here's the challenge or the problem that Kelly and myself and our colleagues are trying to solve, for which is there's no regulation here. So every app is different and every app does different things, and so to say you can never do that, I can't confidently say that, because there could be functionality in certain apps that would allow you to disable location tracking. But in our experience, in my experience on the cases that I've seen, we've been unable to do that with certain makes and models, and I should say that it's not just monitoring location and Kelly can speak to this probably in greater detail than I can but there are other things you can do with an app other than monitoring somebody's location that qualifies as stalking.
Speaker 1:Okay, give us some examples.
Speaker 3:Kelly, do you want to take this one?
Speaker 4:Yeah, absolutely so. And when you're looking at the apps and most cars most cars at about 2017, started getting these apps and at the very beginning 2015, 2016,. It was going to be your higher end vehicles. Fast forward 2024. I mean, these are not just your high end vehicles, these are your Hyundai's, your Ford's, everything has these apps. The ability of what they can do is not only and it is pinpoint precise location of that vehicle. When I tell you pinpoint if my vehicle is parked in my driveway, I pull up the app, it is telling me my exact address. So it's pinpoint. It's not general, it's not like a tower, we're saying less than 500 meters, it is pinpoint.
Speaker 1:It's better than the cell phone location.
Speaker 4:in fact it depends on what software you use, but yes, well, yes. So the vehicles itself. Not only can you, you can start your car, and I've had a victim that had several years ago that the offender would start the car in a closed garage at two o'clock in the morning. So you know, when you're taking into technology, as far as smart cars, smart homes, I mean, you can literally drop a person completely insane with what you're able to do remotely. But you can start the car, you can lock the car, you can unlock the car. You know there's many different features that's available to do, but the scariest thing is the pinpoint accuracy of location.
Speaker 4:Now, speaking on Ford, which is Ford Pass, that does not give you historical data, that it gives you real time data and alerts for low tide. It gives you a lot of different stuff. So just you know, locking and unlocking is starting the car. Okay, while it may be something that's harmless, it's certainly a nuisance and that constant reminder when you get into offenders, you talk you know. Again, we talk about power and control. It is the offenders way very easily saying you know. It's almost like poking into the chest, saying I still have power over you every single day, and with the location of it as well, you know is I have power and I can get to you wherever you are.
Speaker 1:So it's doing something like that through an app to a person who has a protective order in place? Is that a violation of the protective?
Speaker 4:order. Oh, absolutely Very first, and I can speak with them with Louisiana. Okay, so Louisiana, the very first, very first, number one, number one on the list. If the defendant is ordered not to abuse, harass, stalk, follow track, monitor, so even locking, unlocking the door, harass, follow track. You know, follow track, monitor violation. And then when you get into the into this very specific Louisiana laws, when the offender is subject to a protective order or temporary restraining order, stalking becomes a felony. So not only can you hit it with the violation protective order, but you can also hit it with the felony stalking, because you know doing this, you know without a prior conviction, for violation of the protective order in the state of Louisiana would be a misdemeanor. That's stalking. Now you get a felony.
Speaker 1:And you know to your point, though some of these things are happening and you're unaware that they're happening. They're in the background, and so if you don't know what's happening and or you don't report it, then there's nothing that can be done. So the violation can occur over and over again.
Speaker 4:Absolutely. I mean, I know on this particular case she a message popped up on her screen and that's what led her to believe that it was happening. Now, proving it was happening, what I tell you I was probably 20, 25, I'm search warrants into this case, proving it happened, Because stalking in general is one of those that while we know it happens, you know I can't charge off a knowing, I have to charge off the evidence. So knowing and proving maybe two different things. So she had gotten this message. I don't know what other cars do, so that's a number one biggest thing is how do we know it's happening? Has there already been a domestic homicide that occurred in the United States that we simply didn't know the access was from a car app? We won't know that and, with their unwillingness to even honor a search warrant, we'll never know that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so critical points and these types of investigations. Now, just generally speaking, how often are you seeing these types of stalking cases?
Speaker 4:So I have dealt with a couple of them. I mean again, and I don't think it's because it's not happening as often, I think it is because the victim simply doesn't know.
Speaker 3:And I can say that I certainly I see them pretty frequently, not necessarily when there's a domestic violence restraining order or a protective order in place, but simply in the normal course of an abusive relationship, because the majority of domestic violence cases don't reach law enforcement, they don't reach restraining orders. So we're talking about people who just want to stay safe but may not want to go to law enforcement or get or apply for a protective order through civil court and in those circumstances we hear about this all the time that victims have to want to enter shelter but have to park their car somewhere else because just the mere specter of there being tracking would put the entirety of the shelter residents at risk. And that's what I think. What we're talking about here is that it's the not knowing right and that's something we're trying to address the regulation, legislation, but it's this not knowing piece that victim service providers and the victims themselves and law enforcement were in the dark, and we need to shine a light on this ASAP.
Speaker 1:Okay, so to those points, then, how can we shine a light on this? I mean, we're having this conversation, obviously, but what else can we do?
Speaker 3:Well.
Speaker 1:I'm putting you on the spot.
Speaker 3:Okay, I'm, you know. So the detective downy approached me after I presented on tech enabled abuse at the conference on crimes against women and, despite her recollection, she was delightful and I had a really amazing and energizing conversation with her and we started a dialogue about how do we address this. Because if somebody as motivated as as she was, and 25 search warrants and all these things, and she was unable to move the needle with Mercedes, how was a victim who doesn't have the assistance of anybody supposed to navigate these waters? It's untenable, unfair and no victim should have to choose between transportation and being stalked, right? It's like well, I can't have a car if I don't want to be stalked, right, that we reject that notion. And so we started a dialogue about this and thought that shining a light on it in the press will get the attention of regulators and auto makers to address this issue. And so we worked with the New York Times and Kashmir Hill, who's a great reporter on gender-based violence and technology, to put an article together where I was interviewed and Danny was interviewed and Christine was interviewed and other folks were interviewed about this issue. That came out on December 31st and it did what we hoped it would do.
Speaker 3:A few days later, the FCC issued a letter to the nine largest automakers in the country asking them what they're doing about this issue. I was contacted by a US Congressperson and a state senator in California about legislation that they want to move forward on this issue. We're hearing from other media outlets who want to shine a light on this. I'm hearing from other victims, other survivors, other victim service providers, and so our goal is, to your point earlier, it's not a complex issue. We just want to see regulation or legislation or fine with either that ensures that if a victim has exclusive use and possession of a vehicle or title of that vehicle, that they can sever their abusive spouse or their abuser's access to that vehicle via the app and make it easy for them to do so, make it straightforward and make it easy for them to determine whether somebody does have access to the car in the first place, and put these trauma-informed policies in place at every auto manufacturer that wants to sell a car in this country, and we think that can move the needle greatly.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think this is a great strategy, right? I also think that, to your point, companies that create any type of technology, whether it's an app or a car, they have a responsibility to the people who are using the products and benefiting from the products that they provide, and so we've seen this time and time again Technology companies, repeatedly, are being questioned and called on the carpet for things that are being done with their technology that harm people, and we could talk about social media, we could talk about apps, we can talk about all kinds of things where products are harming people, and companies need to be not only held accountable but, part of the solution, to provide safety to all of us 100% agree on that and just a few years ago and I was joking with that on the other day about for $69.95,.
Speaker 4:you too can be a stalker, because prior to the apps of yeah, ok this was not.
Speaker 1:Tell me, that was not an ad.
Speaker 4:No, it's not an ad, so it's kind of a joke. So yeah, prior to the apps, old technology of being able to track somebody. You have a couple of different manufacturers of a tracking device that is put into a magnetic box. It goes onto the bottom of the frame of the vehicle and easily removed. And one of my favorite things to do and I've pulled off plenty of those, my funnest thing was to do was to disable the battery at where we log our evidence. So the last transmission of that tracker was at the Bozier Sheriff's Office and that's a little fun for me.
Speaker 4:You have to take your humor where you can get it, but find, remove, find, remove. So you have the ones that are on the frame of the car. You have some that are put into the ODP port. You can also hardwire it into a vehicle. I mean, I've put cars on lifts to find things and to find it and get it off because you know what's happening.
Speaker 4:Phones you know phones. You can do a factory reset, create a new app cloud or a Gmail address and do not re-sync that phone to remove any apps that are designed to not be seen on home screens. And it is very good at tracking you. Everything except for these automobile manufacturer apps we can circumvent. Sometimes it's a lot harder to find it, but you know I don't mind to give them a little greasy, that'll happen. But there's literally no way around this wall and me being who I am, I could not go through the wall. I could not go around the wall.
Speaker 4:So at this point I was just getting very frustrated for my victim, because this is her nightmare, not mine, you know, I'm just the one that's supposed to fix it and I couldn't. So that's when I had reached out to a automobile repair place for European cars here and the question something on this vehicle makes the car talk to the app. Can we remove that? And through several conversations we were able to figure out OK, we can, we're just going to rewire the car. And that's what they did. Really, I was going to make this stop one way or somehow, and it literally took having to have the car rewired.
Speaker 4:Now, a little God is a great thing is the fact that the person that works at this place she was a domestic violence survivor, and so my victim was actually only charged what it cost because they had to get a new wiring schematic from Mercedes. So she was only charged their actual expense, but it made it stop. Wow, that's incredible. It made some other things stop on the car as well, but that was her choice, her autonomy. I presented her with a solution. It was the only solution we had. I presented her with a solution and she made the decision to do so because, again, this was her nightmare and I just simply wanted to be able to give her some type of a solution, because all of my screaming, all of my yelling to Mercedes, all the different search, everything was not getting a resolution.
Speaker 4:And so that was the biggest thing. Let's give her a moment of peace, well, that's an incredible story.
Speaker 1:Right there, it's just going the distance with this victim to get her peace, as you said, to have this resolved, and so this just happened. This was just resolved recently.
Speaker 4:So my arrest warrant was issued in April of 2023 for the offender. So we're going on a year. But again, when I was hitting all the different brick walls and I reached out to our Attorney General's office, they did a bunch of research and they came back and said Kelly, this is going to require federal legislation. And I'm like cool. And then Adam blessed his heart. He just didn't even realize what he was getting involved in when he said, yeah, I've got a second.
Speaker 3:I'm so grateful. I'm so grateful it's been. Honestly, it's a great. I mean we're really, I mean I'm really grateful to the conference right for putting us together.
Speaker 4:But this every year yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and. But this is what advocacy can look like. Right, when you put people together and I'm not plugging the conference, the conference is amazing. But when you put like-minded professionals at a conference together and they share information and they're not siloed and they start thinking about creative ways that they can deal with problems that are not getting resolved in their jurisdictions or nationally, this is a really exciting blueprint for that Getting media attention to leverage legislators and agencies like the FCC to stand up for people like Christine who deserve to feel safe.
Speaker 3:And in the way the landscape currently exists, it's impossible for somebody in her situation to feel safe, short of having somebody like Detective Downey on your side. And rewiring the car at cost, like that is such a-. I'm simultaneously in awe of what Detective Downey was able to do and angry that they had to go to that length to do something so simple. And just to answer your question earlier, maria, about don't tech companies have an obligation to think about the ways in which their technology puts victims at risk when it's misused? Heck, yeah, they do right, but investing in trust and safety is not we don't see the investment at the scale of other departments in these companies. Right, they want to grow, they want to make money, they want to acquire users and acquire customers, and trust and safety is a bit of an afterthought until something happens, so this is easily predictable. I'm sorry, I feel like I'm about to go on a rant right now, so I'm going to try to slow it back down, but you are preaching to the converted, but please go ahead, yes.
Speaker 3:This is so easily foreseeable. You do not have to have ESP to see how these apps could easily be misused and weaponized to harm victims of abuse. And yet nothing was done proactively, which is sadly the standard for most tech companies and most or companies that use technology, like automakers. And then when this issue is raised, they move at a glacial pace to address it or they don't address it at all, and we could have gone to the automakers directly and said hey, this is going on, can you do something about that? But we knew that our time is valuable, detectives. That's the time is valuable.
Speaker 1:That's also. That's the long way around. Well, the fact is OK.
Speaker 4:The fact is, I had numerous conversations with Mercedes OK, numerous 100. When they would not, they had a registered agent in the state of Louisiana which, by the way, they don't answer the phone, nor they would return phone calls. So I had these pattern-reviewed shares of this office and deliver a search warrant to them. No response, ok. So I had gotten to a point that I had gone on to their website and just their regular contact us and I was uploading the solid exclusive views, I was uploading the TRO and then giving this whole little spill every single time. And I will tell you, I got to a point to where I was doing it multiple times a week because at this point it was just me being me an extra.
Speaker 4:But anyway, the fact is is that you know, and I can speak on this as far as Mercedes, ok, for a couple of years, a year or so, the app is free, but after that is a paid service. So, on this particular, my offender was the paid person, so he paid for the app, he was paying for the use and he was a registered owner. So did that play a part in the fact that they would not relinquish his ability to use the app, you know, and go back to that sweet little customer service lady again where she said oh, just call him and ask him to uninstall. And I was floored at that point.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I can kind of see it. I mean, there's all these regulations in place for to protect consumers' privacy and purchase protection and there's all kinds of things. Like you know, it can be as complicated as what you're talking about or as simple. As you know, your name's not on the water bill, mrs Smith, so we can't talk to you about this account.
Speaker 4:You're going to have to have the person whose name's on the bill, but I mean the FCC under the Safe Communications Act. I mean they were able to do this with cell phone carriers. There's a way to do it. Ok, so great, we have to go jack with the car manufacturer. That and that's fine. But the fact is, with 85% of your domestic homicide victims being stalked prior to, how difficult is this?
Speaker 1:I believe you. I mean, I get it and you're right, it is not hard. This should be possible.
Speaker 3:I should say, when you talk about privacy and regulation, maria, there was a recent review by Mozilla, which is a technology nonprofit, that reviewed different agencies, different industries and found and I'm just looking at their press release right now it said it's official cars are the worst product category we have ever reviewed for privacy. They are privacy nightmares on wheels, and so this is a very unregulated area, this intersection of automobiles and apps, and victims are being caught in the crossfire, and so we're hoping to sort of change the narrative here, and the seed for the beginning was Christine, was Christine's story, Okay, so along those lines, how are you working with law enforcement to train them about cyber stalking and all the things that can happen with these apps?
Speaker 3:So the way that I work and train law enforcement and prosecutors and judges around tech facilitated violence and tech facilitated stalking is to make it as straightforward and accessible as possible, because they are busy professionals and the idea of learning some entire new skill set to deal with tech facilitated violence is something that most people are not motivated to do.
Speaker 3:So my approach is one part knowledge building, one part skill building. I raise awareness about how technology is being weaponized and misused to engage in familiar forms of abuse like domestic violence, sexual violence, trafficking, stalking, elder abuse, bullying, and then talk about ways that we can address and prevent and verify it without having to be a tech expert how to see if somebody is logged into the victim's account, figuring out how a victim is being non-consensually tracked for their apps or their devices, and if it gets to the point where you need an expert or law enforcement with the resourcing and staffing to properly investigate it, then they can escalate it to that. But there's so much that we can do to address and prevent tech facilitated violence as non-tech experts, and I think this would be a nice segue to Detective Downey, because she obviously has access to very sophisticated tools and resources to sort of level up to address these things.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay, let's talk about that.
Speaker 4:So, as far as me being the expert on technology and the tools of it, you know, I told you yesterday, you know we are. We are a very, very fortunate sheriff's office with a sheriff that is an amazing person to work for, but also he makes sure that we have the tools in our tool belt. As far as you know, when you come into a different lot of different apps and phones and you have that kind of stuff, there's ways to circumvent that, the potential of stalking. When it comes to these cars, there's nothing out there to fix it. There's no way to fix it. And you know, like if you had, you know, location sharing, or if you have, you know the one specific app. You know I don't know if you want me using that name or anything like that, but there's, there's family sharing apps and family apps for the sharing locations and stuff, and you have the option to exit out of the circle. There's nothing we can do on these cars. You know, obviously I can check it for an external tracking device, but the fact is is every manufacturer has these apps now and without, without having an ability. Now, if, if you, if your victim was the original person that installed the app. Any person after that would have to have their permission. Okay, yes, but if they're not, and what?
Speaker 4:What concerned me greatly with bringing this to light, you know, you know I never intended to be part of a landmark case, but here I am. But was the fact that maybe we're teaching offenders of you know, because it's like, oh, I didn't know I had that app and that was, that was very scary. You know, I don't like teaching offenders how to how to do things, but the fact is, you know, there's on these cars there's nothing we can do. You know, I not only, you know went to the local dealership and had them. I was like you know, what can we do? Everybody was sympathetic, but no one had an answer. And that's, you know, on the car apps, no one has an answer. So to those points?
Speaker 1:detective, you talked to Mercedes. Did they express any challenges that they face, like through engineering or technology development, in doing what you're suggesting, like to turn off the app?
Speaker 4:No, they're only only answer was he's a registered owner. That was their only answer. I did get into a compassion filled plea with one sweet lady and I was like please imagine that this was your sister. And so I got a little more information about a telephone number, an email address, and that email address is not except outside email. So that was you know. While she tried, bless her heart, it was fruitless and their initial response to me was to send a search warrant to ecsupportetbarrazzanconnetcom. Okay, thank you, that's Verizon. No problem, I can handle this all day long.
Speaker 4:So I issued a search warrant to ecsupportetbarrazzanconnetcom. Please tell me why. A year and I'm almost a year and a half later I can tell you exactly it was ecsupportetbarrazzanconnetcom, because I shouldn't have to be able to tell you that. I shouldn't have to remember that. But so I issued it out and they came back and said we need the Venn number, no problem, reissue another search warrant with the Venn number and the first one also. They said we do this by Venn number and also we have nothing to do with the app. So I reissued it with the Venn number and they called me and said we have nothing to do with the app. I can tell you what the car is. I'm like. Well, great, I know where the car is. I know exactly where the car is, and so does my offender. And so they gave me an email address on a telephone number. Again, no one ever answered, and the email address itself did not accept outside email communications. So fruitless and fruitless again. You know, while they had sympathy, no one had a solution, adam.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean the stonewalling at what. What really drives me bonkers? This situation is just the passing of the buck, right? Well, we're not, we're Verizon, we don't have anything to do with the app in the car. And automatic makers say, well, we're car makers, we don't, we outsource the development of these apps. And it's just finger pointing back and forth. And you have, in this case, detective Downey, but also victims and survivors just ping ponging and there's no, and it's like. It's like. It's just like. You're a customer service worst case scenario, right, num putting on hold numbers that don't work, emails that don't work, no follow up, no action. Except you're not trying to quit your gym, right? You're trying to stop somebody from stalking you through your car, and that's why we need to just wipe the slate clean, establish accountability with these auto makers and put in infrastructure to ensure that this doesn't happen again.
Speaker 1:What would incentivize automakers to do what you're saying?
Speaker 3:Federal, well yeah being legally obligated, you know.
Speaker 3:so I'm working with three different legislators to federal one state, and the more I look at the laws and the legislative solutions that we're proposing, they are so reasonable, right, it's hey. If somebody has exclusive use and control over a vehicle or title, then they should be able to terminate somebody's access to tracking them through the vehicle Period. End of story. It's not, it's not complicated, and so my hope is that, well, there's a couple. I guess I'm not naive enough to say it's the right thing to do, and I hope they just they do it because it's the right thing to do. But maybe there's a little bit about there in there. But then there's also press, bad press, and I would like to hear them.
Speaker 3:I'd like to hear a response to the FCC inquiry about what they think about this and what they're going to do about it, and not just remain silent as they have in the Mercedes example, and so I think we have to apply pressure to get them to act there. My hope is that they will. There's a possibility that they could decide. You know what. This is very doable, and we're going to self-regulate and we're going to make this an industry standard, and that's how we're going to move forward on this, and. But if they choose not to do that, then it's got to be regulatory and legislative and they've got to be legally required to do it. And if history is a guy like the Safe Connections Act, which allows victims to divorce their phone number from an abusive partner, you know the telecom agency companies were not willing to do that voluntarily or make it an industry standard, so we had to turn to legislation and we feel like the same game plan is appropriate here.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and let me just fill in this and if you go into the app store any type of app store or anything Mercedes themselves it shows the app is powered by Mercedes. So you can pass the buck as much as you want, but if you're advertising, you're powered by Mercedes, then obviously you have some type of control. Now, I'm not naive to think that it's not farmed out under some type of subsidiary, but the facts remain is that you have control over this app, and disengaging use of that app is not an act of Congress. Well, actually it is.
Speaker 1:It could be. So I can be very solution focused because I really want things to be fixed and work well for people and keep people safe. So I had a thought, adam, when you were talking about how simple the solution would be to correct this issue and make it safer for victims. One other thing that a lot of apps will do if an app is tracking you, it'll say something like every once in a while it'll say oh, your insurance company was tracking your location in the background. Do you want to allow them to continue to track you? And you can say yes or no.
Speaker 1:So to those points, apps like this number one can they add that functionality? And number two and you may not know the answer to that specifically, but number two would a victim even remember that they have the ability to go back? If they bought the car five years ago? They may not remember who's in the app or even think about that. So don't you need a way to inform people or kind of put it in front of them or remind them that they need to maybe take a look at who has access to their vehicle app?
Speaker 3:Yes. So yes to everything that you just said. Does it happen? No, but it is a really elegant solution, because what we're really talking about here is transparency. You should know, we should know who has access to our accounts, who's logged into our accounts and who's tracking our location.
Speaker 1:Well, it's like reading the fine print of that. You know the iOS update. Do you read that?
Speaker 3:I don't Right, no nobody does, and the reality is that it's very difficult and it takes several steps going into your settings to figure out if somebody else has logged into your accounts, and so making that easier for folks is really important, and we have use cases for this. Google does it. Google, if you have location tracking turned on and you use Google Maps and you have your timeline turned on, you will get a push notification that pops up on your phone that says hey, we're tracking your location, we've tracked. You know, seen where you've gone 57 times in the last 11 days. If you still want this access, don't do anything. If you want to adjust the access, tap here.
Speaker 1:And it takes you. You said that so much better than I did. Okay, go ahead.
Speaker 3:Well, it's a really elegant and it doesn't. It doesn't because what device makers and app makers will say is well, we don't want to make the app cumbersome, we don't want to make it harder to use, and that is a really elegant, simple way to alert people and let them, help them understand what's going on with their, with their devices, without having to dig through the settings. And ultimately, this is this is part of a larger problem, right? Because we don't prioritize our digital safety like we prioritize our physical safety. We use apps and accounts and devices all the time, but we don't know how to navigate. Then we don't know how to our our our fight, flight or freeze instincts don't kick in when something's amiss with our tech, because we don't know what to look for or where to look, and so we're so reliant on technology, but we have very little understanding of how it can be misused or weaponized to harm us. And so we really need sort of collectively and this is why I do a lot of talks and schools and with parents is helping kids understand that they should know who's logged into their accounts. They should know if somebody else is tracking them, just like we should know if somebody else, if there's a person sitting in the backseat of our car, we're aware of it, it's where, because we have physical instincts that service really well. But those, those safety instincts, those fight, fight or freeze instincts, don't work so great in the with our technology, and so if they're not innate, they need to be learned, and that's why we have to do a lot of community education around this. But, yes, we can absolutely make it easier and have more transparency.
Speaker 3:It gets, I will say too, about the alerts. It gets a little nuanced, because some parents might say, well, I want, I may want to track my kid right, who's driving the car, and I don't want them getting alerted that I'm tracking them. Now that's a whole separate conversation. Or whether you should track your children without their knowledge or consent. But, like with any legislation or regulation, people will come out against it. They will say, well, you haven't thought about this unintended consequence. Or you haven't thought about this unintended consequence and I've worked on a lot of legislation there's always opposition in some way, shape or form. The reality is, if it's, if that opposition is, is fairly niche or minor, and we're really what we're talking about is victim safety and lives being saved, then I don't really the opposition is not persuasive to me and I don't think we're going to see I hope we're not going to see opposition to to what we're proposing in a in a meaningful way.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean a lot of these things, that there are ethical dilemmas and and developers, businesses, organizations, should really look at them very closely, because their products, to your point, are, you know, they may be user friendly, but they're not user centric in the sense that they don't take into account everything that means to be a human and the threats and the dangers that come at us from all different places, including virtually, and they contribute to our safety or lack of safety. And you know, I think, if, if more of these apps and took into consideration you know, the holistic approach of what we're dealing with when we get behind the wheel. So it's not just to your point of the physical safety, it's also what else is out there that we don't even have time to think about or consider. And, adam, you mentioned and I want to circle back to this real quick the Safe Connections Act. Can you tell us again what that act is, what it's about and if any progress has been made in keeping victims safe?
Speaker 3:Sure. So this act was legislation in response to a problem which found that victims and abusive relationships often were on the same cell phone plan as the person who was harming them and in order to take their phone with them, which is important for connecting with their network, using it for professional purposes. They were either unable to do so because they were not the primary on the account, or they were going to incur some type of fee in order to take their phone number with them and get out of an account with an abusive individual, and so what this sought to do was basically create industry standard that every phone carrier can, upon proper showing, allow a victim of domestic violence or gender-based violence to opt into this program and take their phone number with them. And it's working. And it works.
Speaker 3:There was opposition that people were going to abuse this program, that people who weren't really victims of domestic violence were going to try to separate phone numbers out of accounts without incurring a fee, and things like that. But that's a very common refrain. We see it's unproven, it's just speculation and to our knowledge, that hasn't been happening here. So that's a roadmap to show that really massive companies can take steps to prioritize the privacy of victims who use their product, whether it be a cell phone plan or whether it be an automobile, and we just want them to follow that same approach.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that's an amazing step forward, you know, in keeping people safe. I hadn't heard of it and I hadn't heard about the other thing that you mentioned divorcing your phone number.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's the same thing I just was that it's taking your phone number with you. Oh, okay, fully abusive relationship. Okay.
Speaker 1:And I guess you can always block anyone from calling you. Right, you can.
Speaker 4:Yeah, that's easily circumvented. You can block callers but if you do the star six, seven, it still goes through. But also I mean if you talk about, you know, cyberstalking itself, I mean I don't even know how many number of text apps or voiceover IP apps there are. My record under search warrants and stuff, my record of the number of apps used by one individual and offender was 17. So I mean you can block telephone numbers all day long when it takes literally 32 seconds to get another one. So that's doing dates. That's just. I mean people are.
Speaker 4:You want to talk about tenacity? Look at an offender that's losing control over their victim. That'll give you the definition of tenacity. We have to be able to work harder and smarter than they do and then throw in some sorry Adam, throw in some California law, or some California companies don't want to honor out of state search warrants, sorry Adam. So throw that into the mix and then you know that gets into a whole other fun realm of watch me, tell me no and watch me do it type thing.
Speaker 4:But you know, the fact is, you know the victim has had their autonomy taken away from them for so long and then we're going to ask them. You know how and you would make this stop. Well, why don't you change your telephone number? Well, they shouldn't have to. So I mean again, the text apps is going to be another whole conversation of you know how do you make it stop? Because you don't. But you know giving them victim solutions and then giving them autonomy to be able to make decisions that is best for them. That's what we do. And as far as you know, as far as you know training and stuff like that, you know obviously you know other agencies around my area as long, as well as the nonprofits that run the safe houses and stuff. You know we've made them very aware of the potential of for safety concerns.
Speaker 4:You know I can't, if A, I can't outsmart technology, but B, I can't beat it, I can't. You know I can't work as fast as technology is, and so it is a never-ending battle. So you know, in some cases and when you're talking cyber stalking and you know the use of text apps and things like that, you know. You know get, you know you have your initial investigation and stuff like that. You may have had five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten or eleven different telephone numbers and with that you can get your search warrants going so you can get your arrest affidavits and all the other telephone numbers that keep coming in.
Speaker 4:That's pattern of behavior and you're going to. I mean, otherwise I would never close a single case because it would just keep going and going and going. But you know pattern of behavior. Yes, it's probably the same person, same. You know same type of text and you know everything else is the same. Must be him. You know who walks like a duck, talks like a duck. It must be a duck. But you know, the fact is, is technology's gotten so? It's our greatest curse and our greatest blessing.
Speaker 1:So, detective, what would you recommend someone bring to you or present to you if they believe they're being cyber-stalked? What kind of evidence do you want to see or documentation do you want to see?
Speaker 4:So cyber-stalking, as far as the different text apps and sometimes it's, you know it could be social media, just unknown accounts and things like that you give me the username and give me a search warrant near two later, and I'll give you the app, the address of who did it. So I mean, nothing is ambiguous. Some things are just harder than others. And I was talking, adam and I were talking the other day. I was like you know, here's the big thing. I'm a very fortunate for who and where I work. A it's an incredible sheriff and we have, you know, 450 members in the Bozier Sheriff's Office and you know our domestic violence unit is two dedicated investigators. That this is all that we do every single day. What about the Department of Five or Six or Ten? They don't have time for this. They don't have the resources for this. You know, I don't think. I don't think people know that. You know investigations actually cost the Sheriff's Office money. You know when you send off a search warrant, some company charges you for that. You know you can do the whole fight. We ain't got to pay it, but then your next return might be, you know, 10 weeks slower. So you know this should not be cumbersome. It just absolutely should not.
Speaker 4:Victim safety shouldn't have to involve law enforcement first and foremost. Okay, because you know the grant that I work under. I was tasked to identify three victims per quarter that were victims of prior abuse but did not report to law enforcement. I get five or six a month. So you know people don't. You know they don't have to have law enforcement involved to be safe. It's just it does not a requirement. Being safe is something that you should get from the womb. Just being safe, you know, and fleeting their abusive partner. A they don't want to poke bears in the eyeballs with sharp sticks, they want to just be safe.
Speaker 1:So, adam, to help women who are involved in or leaving abusive relationships to keep themselves safe, what car features or smartphone features or apps do you recommend they use?
Speaker 3:First of all, I think we should just clone Detective Downey and put her in every jurisdiction in the country, because that would be in good shape. So your question is what apps or accounts do we recommend victims and survivors use to be safe? So I'll give you some examples. Let's say a victim is being harassed anonymously via spoofing apps and things like that by a partner, or I've worked on cases where an ex-partner will will use a phone spoofing app and pretend to be the victim's mother or the victim's best friend and the phone recognizes that number at. You know, like their mom, their mom's face shows up in the contact photo and they think it's their mom, but then they answer and it's their harasser and if they hang up and call that number back, it calls the mother, it doesn't call the person using it.
Speaker 1:Oh wow yeah.
Speaker 3:And so that's a very now. Detective Downey has different resources but, like, like she mentioned, most folks don't go to law enforcement for this stuff, or a lot of folks don't go to law enforcement for this stuff, and so how can we help somebody? Safety plan in those moments, and so what we will encourage people like in that situation what we recommended. The victim did what we recommended because she was a college student. She was just never knew who. When someone was texting or calling, she didn't know if it was real or fabricated and her quality of life had. Just she was ready to drop out of school, she was thinking about self-harm.
Speaker 3:It was awful, and so what we recommended she do is to take some of the power away from this person. Is we said okay, why don't you use a messaging app like Signal? Let's say, Signal is a messaging app that's encrypted, it's run by a nonprofit, it doesn't collect your data. You can send messages to disappear, you can do video calls, you can do phone calls. What if you just had everybody in your network who's being impersonated by this person? Why don't you just start communicating with them on Signal and block every? Just set up to block all your friends and family on your phone. And she did that, and it was like her life changed in an instant because she knew she could communicate with her family safely. This person didn't know that she was using Signal and she wasn't getting these inbound texts and phone calls from people that may or may not be somebody she loved or care about, or could have been a wolf and sheep's clothing, and so that's just a very straightforward way. Now, is it a perfect solution? Does it hold that person accountable? No, but it gives her some peace and the ability to connect with her network safely.
Speaker 3:And so there are tools out there. There are stopnciiorg, which is a website that helps extortion victims. By creatinga finger with someone threatening to post a nude photo of a victim online, that victim can go to stopnciiorg, have a digital fingerprint made of that photo, and that fingerprint not the photo, but the fingerprint will then be shared with all social media platform and they will algorithmically scan for that photo, be alerted if somebody tries to upload that photo, and it's a way to prevent or quickly remove these photos from being posted online. And so there are examples I mean, I would even say air techs by Apple, which are personal trackers which are heavily misused to stock victims, but they have taken steps to mitigate the harm by and have even gas partnered with Google. So now both Android and Apple devices will alert you if you are being stalked by an unknown air tag within four hours.
Speaker 3:I mean that getting these two I mean they they that is the cell phone market right Android and Apple Right so the fact that they will scan for these is pretty extraordinary. Now a lot of bad things can happen in four hours if you're being stalked. But the other thing that Apple has done is they are have leaned very heavily into cooperation with law enforcement and you find one of these and you were. Take it into law enforcement and maybe detective Downey can share if she's had experience with this. But I've talked to other law enforcement agencies who say that Apple is living up to its promise to cooperate and with law enforcement when they want to know who registered the air tag that was found on a victim. But I will defer it to my esteemed colleague if you have any insights on that detective.
Speaker 4:So, yeah, it works just like that because of the way the air tags work. You know you just in a search warrant off of a very specific number, that is pulled off of that, and then you know, and Apple's gotten really good about more expedited returns and so, and there's, you know, different programs and again, I'm a very blessed individual with the technology that my Sheriff's Office has, because our Sheriff makes sure we have the tools and tool belt. So you know being able to, you know I will say about, about Apple itself, they're the way they return. It's not rocket science to get it done, but it's. You know. Again, I know enough about technology to not break things.
Speaker 4:But again, our digital forensic unit, which was actually a national award winning digital forensic unit, they have a way of decrypting the return and then uploading it into a couple of our difference, either gray key or whatever, to create an absolutely beautiful return of information that gives you absolutely everything. So you know again, with complete accuracy, you know we could pinpoint who the offender is and it's, you know it. Does it take a minute? Yes, but you know, luckily, with how quickly Apple has become. You know it may be two or three weeks, but you know again. That's as great as technology is, about as great as you're going to get for return of information on a search warrant. Two or three weeks and you're in your, in your golden. That's wonderful.
Speaker 1:I want to thank both of you for being with us today and covering this important topic, and I hope to see you both at the conference on crimes against women in our perfect Thank you. Thanks so much for listening. Until next time, stay safe. Registration for the 2024 conference on crimes against women is now available. The 2024 conference will be held in Dallas, texas, at the Sheraton Dallas, may 20th through the 23rd. Visit our website at conferencecaworg to learn more and register today, and follow us on social media at national CCAW for updates about the conference, featured events, presenters and more.