Teddy trackers, hacked doorbell cams and spyware: Surge in DV technology abuse

Technology-facilitated abuse crimes have surged and perpetrators are getting creative with technology and even confronting victims from within prison.

Police say they’ve seen examples of doorbell cameras being used to survey victims, toys gifted to children containing covert cameras, and AirTags hidden in car doors to track movement.

The disturbing examples were shared as police charged 865 people with 2028 offences in their Operation Amarok XI raids, a statewide crackdown on high-risk domestic violence perpetrators.

One Inner West man arrested had allegedly contacted a woman known to him 668 times between May and August from inside a prison, breaching an apprehended violence order.

Another man, from Sydney’s west, is accused of distributing an intimate image of a woman known to him, damaging her belongings and threatening or intimidating her over two months.

A key focus of police efforts, Assistant Commissioner Peter McKenna said, had been catching perpetrators attempting to harass or intimidate their victims. They can now be charged under new stalking and coercive control laws.

There had been an additional 882 stalking and intimidation offences recorded between this year and last, McKenna said, driven by new coercive control legislation, as well as expanding the definition of stalking to include tracking devices.

“It’s that power that they can exert on someone whilst they’re not even in their physical presence. It’s keeping people in fear, not knowing when this person might still come. It’s keeping at the forefront of their mind the power base they have over them,” he said.

McKenna said police were called to a domestic violence incident every three minutes in NSW.

Coercive control was made an offence in NSW on July 1, 2024. The NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research said there were 224 coercive control incidents reported in the nine months to March 2025.

Sixty per cent of these involved harassment, monitoring or tracking, the most common group of controlling behaviours identified, followed by threats or intimidation, financial abuse and shaming, degrading or humiliating.

In nearly 40 per cent of incidents, coercive control was the only offence recorded.

McKenna said in one instance, a child had been gifted a teddy bear with a recording device to monitor and record the victim, while in another case, an offender had FaceTimed the children for a tour of the home.

“We’ve seen tracking devices and spyware using children’s toys,” he said.

McKenna said he was concerned about inmates contacting victims from prison, using tablets provided within the prison, or smuggled mobile phones. Those offenders were then charged with fresh offences, he said.

While technology had made it easier for perpetrators to track, survey and harass victims, it had also made it easier for police to prosecute them, he said, adding to the increase in charges.

“Especially in cases where there is a no-contact apprehended violence order, they’re leaving a trail for us to follow. It’s just that we have to be aware of it. So that’s why we encourage people to come forward,” he said.

“Some of the main controlling behaviours is quite easy for us to identify when it’s been electronically documented,” he said. New coercive control laws meant police were also on the lookout for concerning behaviour such as love-bombing and victim-blaming or other forms of emotional manipulation, McKenna said.

“We’re encouraging people, if you are receiving any type of harassment or contact that you are not comfortable with, to report it to us so that we can investigate it,” he said.

On Saturday, the four-day quarterly blitz targeting high-risk domestic violence offenders, Amarok XI, wrapped up. Police carried out 1590 bail compliance checks and 12,468 apprehended domestic violence order compliance checks, identifying 669 breaches.

Amarok, led by the Domestic and Family Violence Registry, involves officers from each regions’ Domestic Violence High-Risk Offenders Team, along with specialist officers from Raptor Squad, Youth Command, Traffic and Highway Patrol Command and the Police Transport Command.

When the Herald earlier joined police on Amarok raids, Detective Sergeant Adam Townsend, central metropolitan region team leader of the Domestic Violence High-Risk Offender team, said his team targeted “the worst of the worst”.

“They’re usually offenders that are wanted by the police area commands, but they can’t find them, so they send us a job to try and locate them,” he said.

“Most of them are known to police, they’ve got prior convictions and the reason they can’t be found is because they’re good at hiding.“

NSW Police have developed the Empower You app, designed to document abuse and provide better access to support services discreetly. It has had about 30,000 downloads. Police can use the evidence to bring charges.