Technology is woven into nearly every part of our lives. We use our phones to communicate, vehicles to navigate, apps to manage our finances, watches to track our health, and connected devices to control everything from our televisions to our front doors.
Most of the time, that technology makes life easier. But when someone uses technology to monitor, intimidate, harass, threaten, or control another person, it can become part of a pattern of abuse.
The technology itself is not the abuse. The abuse is how someone chooses to use it to take away another person’s privacy, autonomy, safety, or choices.
And it doesn’t necessarily require sophisticated hacking skills. Often, the person causing harm already has access to an account, device, or shared service or is simply using ordinary technology in a way it was never intended.
This kind of harm can come from a current or former partner but can also come from a family member or someone exploiting a person in a trafficking situation.
We created this series on technology-facilitated abuse, or TFA, to help survivors recognize it, understand how everyday technology can be misused, and make informed choices about their digital safety.
What Is Technology-Facilitated Abuse?
TFA is a broad term for abusive behaviors carried out or supported through technology. It can affect someone online, offline, or both.
Technology may be used to:
- repeatedly contact or harass someone who does not want contact;
- monitor someone’s location, activities or communications without their consent;
- access personal or financial accounts without permission;
- impersonate or embarrass someone online;
- threaten to share private or sexual images;
- use private information or images to threaten, coerce or exploit someone; or
- interfere with someone’s ability to safely use their accounts, devices, transportation, finances, or other technology.
These behaviors can overlap with domestic violence, sexual violence, and human trafficking.
What Can Technology-Facilitated Abuse Look Like?
You do not need to understand exactly how something is happening to recognize that something may be wrong. Some warning signs may include:
- Someone repeatedly seems to know where you are, who you have spoken with, or what you have done when you have not shared that information with them.
- You are pressured to constantly prove where you are, respond immediately, or give someone access to your accounts or devices.
- Someone continues contacting you after you have asked them to stop.
- You notice changes to accounts, devices, or connected services that you did not make.
- Someone uses technology to threaten, humiliate, impersonate, isolate, or punish you.
- Someone interferes with your ability to access your own communications, money, transportation, or services.
- You change your behavior because you believe someone may be watching what you do online or through your devices.
One unexpected notification or strange technology glitch does not automatically mean someone is monitoring you. Look at the larger pattern. Is technology being used alongside threats, intimidation, unwanted knowledge, harassment, or attempts to control your choices?
Trust What You Are Noticing
TFA can be confusing because the technology involved may be completely ordinary. A shared phone plan is ordinary. A family calendar is ordinary. Location sharing is ordinary. A connected vehicle or smart-home system is ordinary. What matters is how that access is being used.
If someone is using technology to frighten you, pressure you, keep track of you, interfere with your independence, or make you feel that you cannot safely make your own choices, you do not have to know the technical explanation before taking your concerns seriously.
What Does Alabama Law Say?
Alabama does not have one law specifically called “technology-facilitated abuse.” Instead, existing laws may apply depending on what someone is doing with the technology.
Alabama law addresses behaviors including electronic tracking (Ala. Code §13A-6-95), stalking (Ala. Code §13A-6-90), harassing communications, and the nonconsensual creation or distribution of certain private sexual images, including images that are digitally altered or entirely AI-generated, if a reasonable person would believe they depict an identifiable individual (Ala. Code §13A-6-240).
This area of law keeps changing. In 2026, Alabama lawmakers considered a bill (HB347) that would have made developers of “nudification” apps and similar AI tools civilly liable when their products are used to create these images against someone’s will; it passed the Alabama House but did not become law before the session ended. Separately, the federal TAKE IT DOWN Act requires many online platforms to remove nonconsensual intimate images within 48 hours of a valid request, regardless of whether the image is real or AI-generated.
Whether a specific situation is covered by law depends on the exact circumstances, and this area of law is likely to keep evolving. An FSC advocate can help survivors explore safety planning, legal advocacy, and other available resources.
Next: Start With the Device You Carry Everywhere
Phones are connected to far more than calls and text messages. They may also connect to your location, photos, email, social media, cloud accounts, financial information, and other parts of your daily life.
In the next article, Is Someone Monitoring Your Phone or Accounts? Start Here, we’ll look at the signs that someone may have access to information through your phone or connected accounts.
If you are concerned that technology may be part of an abusive or controlling situation, we can help; call our 24-hour resource hotline at 334-263-0218 or visit us at 858 South Court Street, Monday–Friday, 8:30 a.m.–4:30 p.m.