Women are arming themselves with technology to protect themselves from violence. Is it working?

() – The man accused of killing 22-year-old college student Laken Riley in February while she was jogging on the University of Georgia campus was found guilty of murder this week and sentenced to life in prison.

Laken’s sister, Lauren Phillips, now a student at the University of Georgia, walks in fear across the grounds of her dream school.

“I can’t walk around my own university campus because I’m terrified of people like José Ibarra,” she said through tears in court this week, as her sister’s killer looked on.

Riley went for a run in broad daylight. He texted his mother to tell her what he was doing. He used his cell phone to share his location with trusted friends. And she used the SOS function on her phone to call for help when she was being attacked.

Many women who use these tools to protect themselves would say that Riley did everything right. And there is a growing arsenal of products aimed at improving security and protecting peace of mind.

Applications like Find My Friends or the running app Strava allow people to share their location with friends. Some ride-sharing apps offer users the option to share their route with a third party. Personal security alarms that fit in a pocket or on a keychain are advertised with sleek designs and eye-catching colors. Shoe inserts and backpacks are sold with GPS trackers attached. Phones, watches and other devices can make emergency calls with the push of a button.

But as tragic cases like Riley’s continue to emerge, many are taking a closer look at the role technology can play in keeping people safe, along with the vulnerabilities it can create.

In addition to the security technology that some intentionally adopt, almost everyone who uses a smartphone leave a digital trail which can be incredibly valuable in holding bad actors accountable.

A memorial honors UGA alumna Laken Riley at the entrance to the woods where she was murdered. Riley was jogging on a trail on the UGA campus near Herrick Lake when she was attacked.

Investigators were able to use location data from Riley and her attacker’s phones to track the student’s movements on the day of her death. The data placed the two in close proximity at the time of the murder, according to court testimony. Data from Riley’s smartwatch revealed the moment her heart stopped.

“In today’s world, the jury expects there to be some type of digital evidence,” said Jane Anderson, senior legal counsel at AEquitas, a nonprofit that provides workshops on prosecution practices related to gender-based violence and trafficking. of people.

Such digital evidence can be especially important in domestic violence or sexual assault cases, where eyewitnesses are rarely present.

For example, prosecutors can use cell phone or location data to corroborate details of a victim’s story and bolster their credibility in the eyes of a jury, Anderson said.

“You should believe this victim because he told you this and I corroborated it,” Anderson said. “And then she told them that he sexually assaulted her, and although I don’t necessarily have a surveillance camera recording the sexual assault, they can also believe that part of the revelation, because she was very credible in the rest of the revelation.”

In the absence of eyewitnesses, videos, cellphones and location data were a central part of the 2023 murder case against Alex Murdaugh, who was sentenced to life in prison for killing his wife, Maggie Murdaugh, and their son, Paul Murdaugh.

In the case against Bryan Kohberger, accused of killing four University of Idaho students in November 2022, investigators were able to use location data to determine that his cell phone was near the scene where the students were killed.

And this year, Richard Allen was convicted of murdering two teenagers in Delphi, Indiana, in 2017, after investigators examined evidence linking him to the crime, including a video recorded on one of the victims’ phones that appeared to capture to his attacker.

“In many cases, that type of technology, unfortunately, what it does is allow an investigation. It tells you where someone is, where they were last known to be, maybe current location data, if the criminal then picks up that phone and continues using it,” Anderson said. “It’s an investigative tool, but in and of itself, it won’t keep you safe.”

“The other side of the coin for almost any type of digital device is how it can be misused,” he warned.

Advocates for victims and survivors of gender violence say technology can be a powerful safety tool, but people need to be aware of the ways it can leave them vulnerable to harm and how to close those gaps.

The National Network to End Domestic Violence created the Safety Net Project to educate survivors and advocates about technology safety and privacy.

“As the world becomes more and more tech-savvy, there are products and devices that can be really helpful for our safety and our comfort,” said the group’s chief executive, Stephanie Love-Patterson. “We just have to be aware of the fact that there are people, unfortunately, who seek to use those same things to cause harm.”

Often, a person intending to cause harm knows their victim and has access to their technological devices, he noted. If that person is tech-savvy, they can access or monitor those devices to gain information about their victim’s location or communications.

“Technology leaves a footprint, and one of the things we talk about often in our Safety Net Project is how to erase or diminish that footprint, and this involves a lot of things,” Love-Patterson said.

That’s where technology education comes into play. The Safety Net project encourages people to do their research and make a plan for their own safety, including sharing location information only with people they trust, changing passwords frequently, and documenting threats or suspicious incidents.

Staying alert and reporting suspicious behavior can also greatly help the people around you, even those you don’t know, Love-Patterson said.

On the day Riley was murdered, a UGA graduate student reported that a person had looked inside her apartment and tried to open the front door. Surveillance video corroborated the student’s account and cell phone location data linked Riley’s killer to the incident.

Earlier this week, that student sat in a Georgia courtroom and testified in the trial that ultimately resulted in his life sentence.

‘s Eric Levenson contributed to this report.