Victims of Technology-Facilitated Abuse: Prevalence, Awareness, Dynamics, Help-seeking and Reporting, United States, 2021

This study was a cross-sectional, national (United States) survey of victims designed to help law enforcement and policymakers to better understand and respond to technology-facilitated abuse (TFA), including non-consensual pornography, sextortion, and cyberstalking. The specific goals for this study were:

Provide information on prevalence, offense dynamics, and levels of awareness about TFA among young adults to help inform policy on this issue.
Develop information on the risk and protective factors associated with TFA victimization to help direct prevention and protection factors.
Improve understanding of what promotes or prevents help-seeking and police reporting of TFA exposure; and obtain baseline data to allow monitoring of help-seeking improvements over time.
Assess costs and consequences of TFA victimization to help inform policy prioritizations and better focus intervention among victims.

This study consisted of four phases. In Phase 1, the research team conceptualized and operationalized TFA domains in consultation with subject matter experts. In Phase 2, cognitive interviews were conducted with students and staff from a large state university (n=13). In phase 3, a pilot survey was distributed and data collected from 111 respondents. Phase 4 was the full-scale administration of the final survey. Respondents were Ipsos KnowledgePanel (KP) panelists aged 18-28 (n=2,639). This collection contains only the data from the full survey.