Maintaining Safety and Security in a Digital Age: Lessons Learned
Valenda Applegarth, JD, Senior Attorney, Greater Boston Legal Services
This session will provide an overview of a new OVW-funded Technical Assistance Initiative, launched in December 2007. Technology has become an integral part of life. Technology can be assistive or a threat to victims of sexual assault, stalking, and domestic violence. This Initiative explores how technology can help or hinder a crime victim’s attempts to become free of oppression or danger, particularly in the context of relocation. This session is a sequel to Technology Abuse: Protecting Victim Safety, Privacy, and Confidentiality, taught at the 2008 Law & Litigation Conference, and includes “lessons learned”, a practical exploration of how technology and victim relocation have evolved, how policy is effected, and improvements designed to better serve victims of crime through innovative program design. Examples of updates that this session will include are: recent prosecutions for misuse of social networking, impersonating, or fraudulent use of the internet, new federal internet laws, privacy initiatives, free speech considerations, and evidence collection and retention in civil and criminal cases involving crime victims. This session is geared toward attorneys with moderate knowledge of crime victims’ rights.
Valenda Applegarth is a Senior Attorney at Greater Boston Legal Services, with over twenty years of experience in representing victims of domestic and sexual violence. She created and staffs the nation’s first Relocation Counseling Project for victims of crime and is collaborating with the National Network to End Domestic Violence on a new technical assistance initiative for LAV grantees, entitled the Relocation, Counseling, and Identity Protection Project.
This conference is supported by Grant No. 2008-DD-BX-K001 awarded by the Office for Victims of Crime, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice. Points of view in this document are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.
