{"id":67294,"date":"2024-09-12T11:13:14","date_gmt":"2024-09-12T18:13:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/?p=67294"},"modified":"2024-09-12T11:13:14","modified_gmt":"2024-09-12T18:13:14","slug":"domestic-violence-abusers-may-no-longer-be-able-to-track-their-partners-with-their-apps","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/?p=67294","title":{"rendered":"Domestic Violence Abusers May No Longer Be Able to Track Their Partners With Their Apps"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\n
By<\/span>Viji Sundaram<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
<\/i>
\n
\n

Cases of vehicle technology-enabled stalking and other forms of harassment are on the rise. A new California bill seeks to address the issue.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n
\"\"
Image credit: Dmitri Fedortchenko | Copyright: Creative Commons 3.0 BY\/NC\/SA<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
\n

The unrelenting abuse by her husband continued for months even after the San Francisco mother succeeded in getting a restraining order against him. In 2020, she told police that he had started using remote technology that was connected to the car apps of their 2016 Tesla Model X family car to terrorize her.<\/p>\n

She alleged that she would often return to her vehicle, only to find the doors open or locked, or the heat turned on, or the horn honking, or the vehicle\u2019s ability to charge turned off.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe had the resources to run an all-round torture campaign against me,\u201d the woman told this reporter in a telephone interview.<\/p>\n

Cases of the kind of technology-enabled stalking and other forms of harassment Kailey (she did not want her real name used because of ongoing litigation) experienced are on the rise as automakers are adding more and more sophisticated features into their vehicles and turning cars that were once considered sanctuaries by their owners into \u201ccomputers on wheels,\u201d said Robert Harrell, executive director of the Consumer Federation of California. Some call them smart phones with wheels.<\/p>\n

But that could soon change, and vehicles could once again become safe havens for their owners if California Governor Gavin Newsom signs the\u00a0Access to Connected Vehicle Service<\/a>\u00a0bill authored by Sen. Dave Min, D-Irvine. The bill sailed through the legislature last month. Newsom has until the end of this month to sign it.<\/p>\n

SB 1394 was jointly co-authored by Assemblymember Akilah Weber, D-La Mesa and Sen. Angelique Ashby, D-Sacramento. It would establish a legal process for the rapid termination of a domestic abuser\u2019s access to app-connected remote and GPS-based vehicle technology.<\/p>\n

\u201cAbuse of these apps can be very threatening and traumatizing to survivors,\u201d Min said in a telephone interview earlier this week. If enacted, California would be the first state in the nation to have such a bill.<\/p>\n

A \u2018lifeline\u2019 for DV survivors<\/h2>\n

Multiple women\u2019s rights advocates who supported the bill say a car is a lifeline to survivors. Having safety and privacy that a car can provide is \u201ccrucial to my clients,\u201d said Prof. Jane Stoever, director of the UC Irvine Law Domestic Violence Clinic, and a co-sponsor of Min\u2019s bill.<\/p>\n

Smart phone apps allow owners to check a car\u2019s location if they forget where they parked it or to lock or unlock it remotely. The car owner can grant access to a limited number of other drivers.<\/p>\n

Drafted with input from a number of survivors, women\u2019s rights advocates and some car manufacturers themselves, Min said he hoped SB 1394 would address domestic violence abusers exploiting in-car location tracking to harass and intimidate survivors.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn this rapidly growing digital age, bills like SB 1394 are a step in the right direction,\u201d noted Shobha Hiatt, a co-founder of\u00a0Narika<\/a>, a Bay Area-based support group for South Asian survivors of domestic violence. \u201cMore states should follow suit.\u201d<\/p>\n

A woman in Southern California discovered an Apple AirTag plugged under her dash by her abusive husband that allowed him to track her movements in real time. When she asked him about it, he dismissively said, \u201cOh, you found it. I\u2019ve been looking for it.\u201d The couple is now in the midst of custody arrangements for their three young sons.<\/p>\n

Kailey sued her husband in State Superior Court in 2020, claiming sexual battery and assault. She included Tesla as a defendant, accusing the carmaker of negligence for continuing to provide the husband access to the car even though she had a restraining order against him.<\/p>\n

She began her requests to Tesla to end access in 2018, a year after the police began investigating her complaints. The carmaker told her that as long as her husband\u2019s name remained on the vehicle\u2019s title as co-owner, they couldn\u2019t deny him access.<\/p>\n

Superior Court Judge Curtis Karnow sided with Tesla that the woman had no proof \u201cother than her belief and imagination\u201d that her husband had used the car\u2019s technology to stalk and harass her, according to court transcripts. Both husband and wife had \u201ca right\u201d to use the car technology, he wrote. At their request, both Kailey and her husband have been identified only by their initials in court documents.<\/p>\n

In the early part of the police investigation, Tesla had told police that the remote access logs they were asking for were only available within seven days of the events recorded, according to the lawsuit.<\/p>\n

Kailey lost the case and has relocated out of California, she said. The couple decided to sell their car. Their divorce and custody issues are pending.<\/p>\n

Tesla did not respond to a request for comment by press time.<\/p>\n

AAI concerned about potential for harm<\/h2>\n

Other automakers offer similar tracking and remote access features, although some of them have taken steps to prevent the misuse of data their vehicles track.<\/p>\n

In a May 23 letter to the Federal Communications Commission, the Alliance for Automotive Innovation (AAI), a technology-focused trade group for automakers and suppliers that represents 98% of car and light trucks sold in the United States, stressed that it was concerned about the potential for abuse of connected vehicle services to\u00a0stalk<\/a>\u00a0or harass domestic violence survivors. Disclosing location-tracking data to an abuser could \u201ccreate a potential for significant harm,\u201d the AAI wrote.<\/p>\n

Min\u2019s bill would address many of those concerns. It would require carmakers to disable an abuser\u2019s access to connected vehicle services within two business days of receiving a request from a survivor. Documentation, such as proof of legal possession of the vehicle, or a domestic violence restraining order that awards vehicular possession would be enough to sever digital access with their abuser even if they hold a joint title, according to a press release from Min\u2019s office.<\/p>\n

Kailey said she was happy that the bill had made it to the governor\u2019s desk because survivors like herself should not have to go through what she did.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe reason I bought that car was because I thought it was safe,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Viji Sundaram is a reporter for\u00a0The Public Pres<\/a>s<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0and Co-Founder of\u00a0Narika<\/a><\/strong>, a nonprofit advocacy group working with Asian Indian women<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ByViji Sundaram Sep 11, 2024 Cases...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-67294","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-opinion","category-u-s-a"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67294","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=67294"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67294\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":67295,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67294\/revisions\/67295"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=67294"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=67294"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=67294"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}