Digital Technologies and Human Trafficking: Combating Coercive Control and Navigating Digital Autonomy

This paper describes a qualitative study that interrogates the types of technology-facilitated coercive control faced by survivors of human trafficking and uncovers potential interventions to aid survivors' recovery. Via semi-structured interviews with 21 participants, including trafficking survivors and professional advocates, we show how traffickers use technology as a lever for control, engaging in surveillance, blackmail, impersonation, and harassment as they compel survivors to stay in the trafficking situation. In recovery, digital footprints keep survivors tethered to their trafficking experience, impacting their digital autonomy, economic mobility, and feelings of safety. Nevertheless, technology can also be a valuable tool for survivors' recovery, connecting them to essential resources and support systems. We discuss the need for interventions and services that account for the specificity of the trafficking context to help survivors attain digital safety and autonomy, including the potential to adapt existing tech safety services designed for other contexts to human trafficking.

• Human-centered computing → Empirical studies in HCI ; • Security and privacy → Human and societal aspects of security and privacy.