dr. atkinson. >> good afternoon. is cindy southworth. representing the minnesota coalition for battered women. all 56 coalitions. i founded the safety net project to support survivors, train police, and work with technologists and policymakers on thoughtful innovation. we work closely with many technology companies. we serve on the safety advisory board. presented, we have over 900 trainings to more than 65,000 practitioners. we love technology. we think of ourselves as the geeks of the domestic violence movement. i want to say that stalkers use location tracking services, devices, andgps smartphone applications. some spyware is one of the most problematic. it allows abusers to monitor much more than location. it does not notify the victim that it has been installed. a standard feature that developers go to great lengths to hide, it does not show up on most -- most phones as an installed app. these are brazenly marketed to stalkers. heavily focusing on the features that will help you spy on your spouse. one of the most disturbing apps i

dr. atkinson? >> thank you. my clock is not working so i'll look over here for it. >> i'll account for the looking over. >> thank you, chairmanen franken and members of the committee. i appreciate the opportunity to submit testimony today. i'm president of a think tank focusing on policies to support technological innovation. this proposed legislation addresses two very distinct and unrelated issues. one is commercial use of geolocation by third parties. the second is the use of that information by individuals, particularly around stalk, since these issues are separate and unrelated, i'll address them separately. the issue of limiting the collection of geolocation by third parties in our view would stifle innovation in an area that is rapidly evolving. we've seen in the last few years tremendous growth in location based services and importantly the u.s. has led in this. the top ten internet companies in the world, eight are american. this is in part because our approach to regulation in this fast-moving digital

dr. atkinson. >> good afternoon. is cindy southworth. representing the minnesota coalition for battered women. all 56 coalitions. i founded the safety net project to support survivors, train police, and work with technologists and policymakers on thoughtful innovation. we work closely with many technology companies. we serve on the safety advisory board. presented, we have over 900 trainings to more than 65,000 practitioners. we love technology. we think of ourselves as the geeks of the domestic violence movement. i want to say that stalkers use location tracking services, devices, andgps smartphone applications. some spyware is one of the most problematic. it allows abusers to monitor much more than location. it does not notify the victim that it has been installed. a standard feature that developers go to great lengths to hide, it does not show up on most -- most phones as an installed app. these are brazenly marketed to stalkers. heavily focusing on the features that will help you spy on your spouse. one of the most disturbing apps i

dr. atkinson talked about being able to suppress it. >> it is vital. the behavior is not new. there is general support around helping vic dumbs. offenders will do anything they can to control their victims. they would look at the odometer when the vic and went to the grocery store to see if she stopped to pick up a prescription because it was outside of the bounds of what she was allowed to do that day. there are crazy amounts of control. some offenders will tell the vic m, i am putting this on your phone and i will be tracking you. it's there and she comes to file a report or a local advocate to talk about a protection order, she can accidentally let the battery run down, but if she does not know it was on the phone because the offender did not tell her, there is no arrow on the top, they cannot do anything to stay safe. resources.s to the someone who feels like they are that itapped saying must be in this thing. what happens when they go to a police station routinely? don't have the tools to look at it or they may only have one tool to look at it and don't see anything after

dr. robert atkinson is the founder and president of the information technology innovation foundation. he holds a phd in city and regional planning from unc chapel hill. he is a published author on economics and technology policy. president of the policy institute and direct their of their new technology -- director of there new technology project. cindy southworth is the vice president of development and innovation at the national network to end domestic violence and founder of of the safety net project. she is one of the nation's leading experts on stalking apps and has trained thousands of people on the use of technology to facilitate stalking. thank you to all of you for joining us. your complete written testimony will be made part of the record. i will note for the record that withy don't we start detective hill? you have five minutes for any opening remarks you would like to make. member, and ranking distinguished members of the subcommittee, my name is brian hill and i thank you for the opportunity to appear before the subcommittee to testify about law enforcement support of the

dr. robert atkinson holds a ph.d. from unc chapel hill and published author on economics and technology policy. before founding itif, he was vice president of the progressive policy institute and director of the new technology project. welcome. ms. cindy southward is the vice president of development in innovation at the national network to end domestic violence and founder of the safety net project. she's one of the nation's leading experts on stalking apps and trained thousands of people across the country on stalking apps and the use of technology to facilitate stalking. thanks to all of you again for joining us. your complete written testimony will be made part of the record. i will note for the record that ms. southworth's written testimony is also being submitted on behalf of the minnesota coalition for battered women. so why don't we start with detective hill. you each have five minutes for eye opening remarks you would like to make. detective hill, please go ahead. >> chairman franken, and distinguished member

dr. atkinson talked about you being able to do that. >> it's vital. behavior is not new, as all the witnesses have said. there's general support around helping victims. the challenge is offenders will do anything they can to control and monitor their victims and back in the day, they would look at the odometer when the victim would go to the store and see if she stopped to pick up a prescription, because that's outside the bounds of what she was allowed to do that day. that just crazy amount of control that offenders do, that happens with some offenders that they will tell the victim i'm putting this stalking app on your phone and tracking you. if she knows it there's when she comes to detective hill to file a report, she can accidently let the battery run dead. but if she doesn't know it's on the phone because the offender doesn't tell her, she can't do anything to stay safe. >> before i run out of time, this goes to the resources. someone who feels like they're being tracked, what happens when they go to a police station routi routinely? >> the agen