This project seeks to understand the increasingly diverse ways in which images are used to perpetrate sexual violence.

The most commonly known form of image-based sexual abuse (IBSA) is ‘revenge pornography’, which has typically been the focus of work on IBSA in academic, legal and government settings. However, this study will also examine lesser known types of IBSA, such as sexploitation, sextortion and sexual voyeurism, in order to build more comprehensive policies and educational strategies.

Due to the limited understanding of image-based sexual abuse, the initial stages of the project will aim to establish the prevalence of IBSA, the common types of IBSA and the long-term implications for victims of IBSA. It will also seek to understand what leads to perpetrators engaging in forms of technology-facilitated sexual violence, and how this compares to other forms of sexual violence.

Forms of technology enabled sexual abuse, such as IBSA, have often been overlooked in technological and cybercrime research; this research therefore aims to link these disciplines to current feminist research in order to better understand and prevent forms of image-based sexual abuse.