Digital Safety Is Not One-Size-Fits-All: Why Women in Non-Digital Communities Need a Different Framework
Introduction
The global architecture of digital safety relies on three underlying principles: ownership of one’s own device, exclusive account occupancy, and autonomous digital action. Contemporary models of cyber safety—from end-to-end encryption to multi-factor authentication (MFA) are based on the idea of the user who unlocks his personal smartphone and knows the login credentials exclusively while independently deciding to log in.
However, for the hundreds of millions of women residing in rural India or comparable societies without access to digital technologies within a patriarchal context, these underlying ideas do not apply. Under these socioeconomic circumstances, the entry of digital technologies into people’s households does not mean the individual’s empowerment but rather means their shared usage under existing hierarchies. It means that the smartphone is owned by the head of the household, accounts are being monitored, and access to the Internet is permitted by the male party.
Thus, technical safety measures, including sending a verification code to a common mobile phone or requiring biometric authentication, often end up hurting women through domestic surveillance and domestic violence. The problem of digital safety for non-digital communities cannot be seen in terms of merely changing privacy settings and being compliant with data regulations. This involves making sure that the deployment of technology does not become an institutional means of domestic surveillance, but is rather treated as a legal entitlement of access. There is a dire need for a re-examination of jurisprudence and cyber laws in a relational feminist perspective.
I. The Data of Digital Inequality and Shared Handset Realities
Digital engagement in agrarian India is marked by gender inequality. According to the GSM Association (GSMA) Mobile Gender Gap Report, whereas mobile phone usage has increased worldwide, there is an entrenched gender gap in mobile internet usage in South Asia, whereby women are less likely to use mobile internet than men.[1],[2] According to National Family Health Survey (NFHS-5) data, more than 70 percent of urban males use mobile phones, but fewer than 40 percent of rural females claim ownership of a mobile phone that is solely theirs.[3]
In rural agrarian settings, household mobile access is overwhelmingly governed by shared usage dynamics. Research by LIRNEasia highlights that in low-income rural households, a single smartphone often serves an entire extended family.[4] Within this shared ecosystem, gendered power dynamics dictate priority and oversight:
● Primary Access: Male family members retain physical custody of the device during daytime hours for work or social activities outside the home.
● Secondary Access: Women are granted temporary, supervised access during specific evening windows, primarily for domestic duties, family communication, or educational assistance for children.
● Surveillance Practice: Handsets are regularly subjected to physical audits, where male relatives review call logs, WhatsApp messages, search histories, and gallery media.
[ Household Mobile Handset ]
│
┌─────────┴─────────┐
▼ ▼
[ Male Head ] [ Female User ]
(Primary Custody) (Supervised Access)
│ │
├─ Unrestricted ├─ Physical Audits
├─ Own Credentials ├─ Shared Accounts
└─ Oversees Access └─ Subject to Permission
When digital security measures tell people to “enable two-factor authentication” and “never share passwords,” they fail to understand the very nature of shared domestic life. Password imposition on a shared device is seen by male protectors as a form of rebellion, fraud, or unfaithfulness, and thus becomes grounds for abuse and denial of any form of digital access.[5]
II. Doctrinal Shortcomings: How Indian Cyber Law Fails Marginalized Women
The primary legislative framework governing digital space in India is the Information Technology Act 2000 (IT Act).[6] While subsequent amendments addressed specific computer-related offenses, the statute remains fundamentally ill-equipped to address domestic, tech-facilitated gender-based violence (TFGBV).
1. Identity Theft vs. Domestic Coercive Control
Section 66C of the IT Act penalizes identity theft, defining it as the fraudulent or dishonest use of another person’s electronic signature, password, or unique identification feature.[7] Similarly, Section 66D addresses cheating by personation using a communication device.[8]
These laws require evidence of fraudulent or deceitful intention in commercial or criminal contexts. These laws have failed completely to account for situations where a man (husband/father/in-law) tries to obtain his wife’s password through force or installs stalkerware in the pretext of exercising familial guardianship. In current penal jurisprudence, domestic digital surveillance only comes under legal scrutiny when it leads to grievous bodily harm or is a criminal betrayal of trust as per the Indian Penal Code of 1860 (Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita of 2023).[9]
2. Voyeurism and Privacy Infringement Limitations
Section 66E of the IT Act penalizes the capture, publication, or transmission of images of a person's private area without consent.[10] Although this provides a way out of non-consensual deepfake creation and image-based abuse IBA, it does not apply to non-visual domestic surveillance, such as accessing private chat messages, tracking GPS locations through family accounts, or monitoring financial transactions through Unified Payment Interface (UPI) applications.
3. Structural Blindspots of the DPDP Act 2023
The Digital Personal Data Protection Act 2023 (DPDP Act) treats individuals as "Data Principals" who possess the legal autonomy to grant, withdraw, or manage consent.[11] Section 6 of the DPDP Act mandates that consent must be free, specific, informed, unconditional, and unambiguous.[12]
Within the backdrop of domestic power dynamics in rural areas, “free consent” loses its legal meaning. The moment a woman residing in a rural area registers herself on a welfare portal launched by the government, or an application for micro-finance, or even social networking sites, the act of consent from her part is negotiated by way of male relatives or VLEs of CSCs. There are no processes within the law that can safeguard against coerced or proxy consent in the domestic realm.
III. Empirical Evidence of Tech-Facilitated Abuse in Shared Contexts
Empirical research conducted by digital rights groups demonstrates how the adoption of technology without the development of tailored safety frameworks exposes non-digital communities to greater risks. For instance, an empirical study done by Equality Labs on digital safety in rural South Asia noted three key vectors of tech-enabled harm in multi-device households:[13]
Form of Tech-Facilitated Harm | Operational Mechanism | Empirical Manifestation in Rural Communities |
Coercive Interception | Mandatory sharing of credentials and physical device auditing by domestic guardians. | Direct deprivation of privacy; immediate suppression of civic, health, or personal communications. |
Proxy Financial Exploitation | Direct oversight or control over direct-benefit transfer (DBT) accounts, mobile wallets, and UPI handles. | Diversion of welfare pensions or microfinance loans away from female beneficiaries to male relatives. |
Surveillance via Default Features | Exploitation of standard platform features (e.g., "Last Seen", read receipts, family location sharing). | Disproportionate physical discipline or restriction of mobility based on digital activity indicators. |
The findings of research carried out by the International Center for Research on Women (ICRW) prove that if women living in rural settings try to mask their digital footprints (use incognito browsers or erase messages' history), then male relatives take it as an indication of inappropriate behavior resulting in high levels of violence.[14] Modern security designs that rely on overt concealment strategies actively put women in danger when device auditability is enforced by domestic authority figures.
IV. Constructing a Relational Digital Safety Framework
To protect women in non-digital and shared-device environments, legal and platform design paradigms must shift from an individualist model to a relational safety framework.
Traditional Safety Framework Relational Safety Framework
┌────────────────────────────┐ ┌────────────────────────────┐
│ • Single-User Assumption │ │ • Shared-Device Reality │
│ • Overt Privacy Controls │ ───► │ • Covert Safety Interfaces │
│ • Strict MFA / Passwords │ │ • Context-Aware Law │
│ • Commercial Fraud Laws │ │ • Coercive Control Statues │
└────────────────────────────┘ └────────────────────────────┘
1. Decoupling Safety from Overt Secrecy
The design framework should include the elements of hidden safety interfaces and deniability. Mobile applications aimed at dealing with domestic violence, sexual well-being, or financial independence should feature disguised user interfaces (DUIs) and fast clear states, which would make it impossible to trace any recent usage in application logs or notifications. The privacy options should allow for data segregation on the device without revealing this to the auditor.
2. Legislative Reform: Codifying Digital Coercive Control
India's legal framework must formally integrate the concept of "coercive control" into both civil and criminal domestic violence laws. The Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act 2005 (PWDVA)[15] should be amended to explicitly include digital surveillance, unauthorized monitoring of devices, restriction of digital access, and compulsion of password disclosure under the definition of economic and emotional abuse.
3. Redefining Intermediary Due Diligence
Under Section 79 of the IT Act, tech intermediaries enjoy safe harbor protection if they observe due diligence.[16] Platforms operating in developing markets should be held to context-specific due diligence obligations. This includes:
Local Language Safety Mechanisms: Safety portals and reporting tools must be accessible in regional dialects and voice-based formats for low-literacy users.
Alternative Authentication Protocols: Platforms offering financial or essential services must develop non-SMS, non-visible authentication pathways that do not broadcast real-time alert notifications to shared domestic screens.
Community-Based Legal Redress: Empowering local Accredited Social Health Activists (ASHA) and Self-Help Group (SHG) networks with digital legal literacy to serve as certified legal advocates for women facing digital coercion.
Conclusion
The digital safety system as we know it has been created by and for a privileged minority who operate in high-bandwidth, single-user situations. Transposing the model to rural, patriarchal settings fails to grasp the operation of technology in non-digital societies. If the safety tools depend on individual isolation and security, they worsen the danger that rural women face as a result of collective ownership and domestic surveillance.
Digital safety needs to be rethought in terms of relationships through restructuring cyber-law legislation, broadening definitions of domestic violence to include digital coercive control and demanding context-sensitive platform design. Otherwise, digital safety cannot be transformed from a tool of domestic violence into an avenue for empowerment.
Statement on AI Usage
AI tools were employed for formatting and grammar check. All substantive arguments, legal analyses, statistical interpretations, and final text were independently reviewed, authored, and verified by the human author.
[1] GSM stands for Global System for Mobile Communications. However, in this context, the correct organizational name is the GSM Association (GSMA), which is commonly known as GSMA.
[2] GSMA, The Mobile Gender Gap Report 2023 (GSMA 2023) 12-15.
[3] National Family Health Survey (NFHS-5) 2019–21, Compendium of Fact Sheets: India and States/UTs (Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India 2021) 45.
[4] Helani Galpaya and others, AfterAccess: Gender and Digital Disparities in South Asia (LIRNEasia 2019) 28–34.
[5] Revi Sterling, 'Mobility and Gendered Space in Rural India' (2018) 12(2) Information Technologies & International Development 41, 44.
[6] Information Technology Act 2000 (India).
[7] ibid, s 66C.
[8] ibid, s 66D.
[9] Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita 2023 (India), ss 85, 316.
[10] ibid (n 6) s 66E.
[11] Digital Personal Data Protection Act 2023 (India).
[12] ibid s 6.
[13] Equality Labs, Intersection of Gender, Caste, and Digital Violence in South Asia (Equality Labs Report 2021) 52–58.
[14] International Center for Research on Women (ICRW), Technology-Facilitated Gender-Based Violence in Rural India: Structural Barriers and Legal Gaps (ICRW Policy Brief 2022) 18.
[15] Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act 2005 (India), s 3.
[16] ibid (n 6), s 79.
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