28 March 2025

Holding Perpetrators of Gender-Based Violence Accountable

2024 was one of the worst on record for violence against women in Australia*, with it being labelled a ‘national crisis’ and an ‘epidemic’. While the government has an established 10-year strategy to eliminate gender-based violence within a generation**, and the National Cabinet’s latest commitment to an additional $4.4 billion in new funding to address the issue – it’s clear there is no simple answer to this complex challenge.

The whole of society response set out by the government is focused on four key domains: prevention, early intervention, response and recovery and healing. The police powers within the ‘response’ focus area are often highly resource intensive. For example, the establishment of Family and Domestic Violence Response Teams (FDVRTs) and specialised training for officers. At Altia we believe the use of technology could complement these approaches providing a cost-efficient way of helping build trust between victims and law enforcement and putting forces in a better position to assess risk and ultimately bring perpetrators to justice.

Safe and secure ways of reporting abuse are just the start

Technology is crucial in offering discreet communication platforms for reporting, without witnesses or victims needing to surrender their devices. But consideration needs to be given to the most effective way to manage the information received to build a full picture of patterns of behaviour. With some solutions, the information ends up in inboxes or data repository meaning the triage process can be labour intensive.

For this reason, we are passionate about building software solutions and capabilities for law enforcement that are interoperable. In this example, it means that anonymous reporting and information upload can be triaged within a case management system, enabling automated link analysis of intelligence to build a more complete picture of evolving patterns of behaviour of an individual within and between cases.

Taking the heavy lifting out of gathering information from a wide range of digital sources

Using Open-Source Intelligence (OSINT) is also increasingly being used in gender-based violence cases. OSINT tools can track an abuser’s online activity, including threats, harassment and stalking behaviour – even when on anonymous forums. When it comes to assessing risk, the most force-friendly tools make it possible to minimise reliance on specialist teams and enable investigators to monitor URLs and key words to proactively assess risk in real-time.

Once again, these tools are most powerful when they can be combined with case management, ensuring centralised management of information and intelligence items.

While technology alone is not the solution it has an important role to play. By integrating secure reporting mechanisms, OSINT tools, and automated link analysis will help police forces work more efficiently to identify patterns of abuse, assess risk in real-time, and bring perpetrators to justice.

* Counting Dead Women, Destroy the Joint (78 women died as a result of gender-based violence in 2024).
** Australian Government – Department of Social Services