EUROPEAN STANDARDS AND UKRAINIAN PRACTICE IN COUNTERING DIGITAL DOMESTIC VIOLENCE: A VECTOR OF HARMONIZATION

Abstract

The rapid digitalization of everyday life increasingly embeds intimate partner and family relationships in digital infrastructure (smartphones, messaging apps, shared accounts, family subscriptions, geolocation services, and “smart” devices). While enhancing convenience and security, these technologies simultaneously create new channels of control, coercion, and surveillance that can be used as instruments of domestic violence. In practice, technology-facilitated dominance is a widespread and growing manifestation of abusive behavior in partnerships, yet it often remains the least “visible” to institutions due to routine access to shared resources, the normalization of controlling conduct, the volatility of digital traces, and the absence of established standards for their preservation and assessment.

Ukrainian law defines domestic violence as physical, sexual, psychological, or economic violence (acts or omissions), as well as threats of such acts. This definition is technologically neutral; however, in a digital environment it requires an applied “translation” into concrete behavioral acts: monitoring communications and accounts, gaining access to services without “hacking,” covert tracking (geolocation, trackers), persistent online harassment, digital intimidation, and deprivation of autonomy through manipulation of access credentials and device settings. The article treats the “digital” dimension as a modus (means) of perpetration, the partner relationship as a qualifying context, and electronic traces as a procedural challenge for evidentiary standards.

The study aims to develop an integrated model for qualifying technology-facilitated domestic violence in partnerships and a practical evidentiary framework-from collecting and preserving digital traces to assessing them in criminal, administrative, and civil proceedings. The relevance for Ukraine is reinforced by the implementation of Council of Europe standards (the Istanbul Convention), GREVIO recommendations on the digital dimension of violence, and the EU legal vector (Directive (EU) 2024/1385), as well as the national debate on stalking (Draft Law No. 12088). The proposed evidentiary basis relies on the discipline of the chain of custody and digital forensic approaches (NIST SP 800-86; NIST SP 800-101 Rev.1).

Keywords: geolocation tracking; intimidation; domestic violence, cyberstalking; account control; criminal procedure; restraining order; intimate partner and family relationships; stalking; Istanbul Convention; technology-facilitated domestic violence; digital control; digital evidence; electronic evidence; forms of domestic violence.