When the Smart Home Becomes a Tool of Control

SAFECHAIN™ · Digital Safeguarding

When the Smart Home Becomes a Tool of Control

By Samantha Avril-Andreassen, LLB (Hons), LLM, LPC, FRSA
Founder, SAFECHAIN™

For years, conversations about technology-facilitated abuse have focused on mobile phones, location tracking, message monitoring and fake online accounts used to maintain contact after separation. Those risks remain significant. However, a quieter and increasingly sophisticated form of coercive control is emerging—one that takes place inside the home itself.

Smart doorbells. Connected cameras. Voice assistants. Thermostats. Lighting systems. Digital locks.

These technologies were designed to make homes safer, more efficient and more convenient. Yet, in the wrong hands, they can become powerful tools of surveillance, intimidation and coercive control.

As homes become increasingly connected, safeguarding must evolve just as quickly.

What This Looks Like in Practice

An abusive partner or former partner with continued access to a shared smart-home account does not need to be physically present to exert power.

They may be able to:

• Monitor who enters and leaves the property through cameras or smart doorbells.

• Control heating, lighting or locks remotely.

• Trigger alarms at unpredictable times.

• Access voice assistant histories or recordings.

• Continue monitoring household activity long after separation.

The individual device is almost irrelevant.

The real message being communicated is far more damaging:

"I am still here. I still have access. You are not beyond my control."

A survivor describing "the lights keep turning on by themselves" or "someone keeps changing the heating" is not describing an unusual technical fault.

They may be making a safeguarding disclosure.

Why Institutions Are Not Yet Set Up to Recognise This

This is not a hypothetical concern.

Technology-facilitated coercive control through smart-home devices is an increasingly recognised pattern receiving attention from technology journalists, cybersecurity specialists and domestic abuse researchers alike.

Yet many organisations—including housing providers, financial institutions, police forces, healthcare settings and local authorities—still have no consistent way of recognising or recording it.

Disclosures involving connected devices rarely fit neatly within traditional incident-recording systems.

Without an appropriate category, these concerns risk being:

• minimised;

• misclassified;

• treated as isolated technical issues; or

• overlooked entirely.

This is precisely the kind of Institutional Fragmentation™ SAFECHAIN™ seeks to address: where important pieces of safeguarding information exist, but no single system brings them together to reveal the wider pattern of risk.

Questions Every Organisation Should Be Asking

If your organisation works with people experiencing abuse, ask:

• Do we know how to safely separate shared smart-home accounts?

• Can former partners' access to connected devices be revoked quickly and discreetly?

• Are frontline professionals trained to recognise unusual device behaviour as a safeguarding indicator?

• Does our safeguarding framework explicitly address technology-enabled coercive control?

• Can our incident-recording systems capture these disclosures in a meaningful and consistent way?

• Who coordinates the response when multiple digital platforms are involved?

If the answer to any of these questions is no, there is work to be done.

A Design Responsibility, Not Simply a Response Responsibility

Technology companies also have an important role to play.

Safety should not be treated as an optional feature added after harm has occurred.

It should be embedded into product design from the outset.

That includes:

• secure account separation;

• emergency access revocation;

• visible access histories;

• survivor-centred account recovery;

• discreet safety settings; and

• clear ownership transfer.

Design decisions can either reduce opportunities for abuse—or unintentionally enable them.

Where SAFECHAIN™ Fits

SAFECHAIN™ exists to bridge the gap between recognising coercive control in principle and responding to it effectively in practice.

Digital and smart-home coercion illustrates a broader systems problem.

The harm moves seamlessly across technology platforms, housing providers, policing, healthcare, financial services and safeguarding agencies, while organisational structures often remain fragmented.

By the time information reaches a professional, the pattern has frequently been divided into separate incidents, recorded in different systems and assessed in isolation.

Recognising the pattern—and designing governance systems capable of responding to it—is the next challenge for safeguarding.

This same principle informs the SAFECHAIN™ Digital Companion, which has been designed with Quick Exit™, Stealth Mode™ and Journal Lock™ from the outset, recognising that digital safety should be built into a service, not retrofitted after harm has occurred.

Looking Ahead

As technology continues to reshape how we live, it will inevitably reshape how coercive control is exercised.

The question is no longer whether smart-home abuse exists.

The question is whether our safeguarding systems are prepared to recognise it.

Because a connected home should never become a digitally controlled prison.

This article reflects SAFECHAIN™'s analysis of an emerging safeguarding issue and is intended for information and professional discussion. It does not constitute legal advice. If you or someone you know is experiencing domestic abuse, contact a specialist domestic abuse service or the police.

Talk to SAFECHAIN™

If your organisation would like to strengthen its approach to technology-facilitated abuse and digital safeguarding, SAFECHAIN™ welcomes opportunities to support policy development, training and systems improvement.

Together, we can build safeguarding systems that are as connected as the technologies they are designed to govern.

This version has a stronger white-paper feel and is suitable for your website, LinkedIn Articles, and future SAFECHAIN™ publication series. It also introduces Institutional Fragmentation™ naturally without appearing promotional and ends with a memorable closing line that reinforces your central message.

Copyright

© 2026 Samantha Avril-Andreassen. All Rights Reserved.

Published by SAFECHAIN™

This publication is protected by copyright. No part of this article may be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, stored in a retrieval system, or translated into any form or by any means without prior written permission from the copyright holder, except for brief quotations used for review, research, news reporting or academic purposes with appropriate attribution.

SAFECHAIN™, Institutional Fragmentation™, Participation Integrity™, Disclosure Integrity™, Jurisdictional Integrity™, Quick Exit™, Stealth Mode™, Journal Lock™, and associated frameworks are proprietary intellectual property of Samantha Avril-Andreassen.

This article is intended to promote professional discussion and awareness of safeguarding practice. It does not constitute legal advice.