Australia police proposal of ‘sexual consent app’ criticised as short-sighted and open to abuse

Australian police have sparked consternation by proposing that sexual consent could be recorded via a smartphone app to combat increasing sexual assault cases.  

New South Wales saw a 10 per cent rise in reported sexual assaults in 2020, prompting the state’s police commissioner to say that Australia needed to modernise ideas around “positive consent” that is “active and ongoing throughout a sexual encounter”.

“Intimate violence particularly against women is a real problem crime for us at the moment and we need to find a solution,” Mike Fuller told ABC Radio Sydney.

Commissioner Fuller acknowledged the proposal might be “the worst idea I have all year”, but said Covid-19 had shown the importance of considering the solutions technology could provide.

“If someone told me two years ago that we would have to sign in our phones every time we sat down at a restaurant, I would’ve laughed at them.”

The police have been accused of shifting the focus away from the real problem of attitudes towards male violence against women, and highlight that it does not factor in the fact consent can be withdrawn at any time.

Ariel Bogle, an analyst with the Australian Strategic Policy Institute’s International Cyber Policy Centre and veteran IT writer, wrote on social media that the commissioner’s lack of understanding was “terrifying”.

“Trying to think of something funny to say about Fuller’s consent app idea, but just can’t,” she wrote.

“It’s frankly terrifying that the NSW police commissioner misunderstands the problem and the society he is serving so profoundly.”

Over 5,000 people have downloaded a similar app after it was launched in Denmark last month. 

Commissioner Fuller said it was “irrelevant” whether Australia’s proposed app “floats”, but that it is about “understanding that this crime is on the increase”.

“We need to confront it whether that’s through technology or education and training or through other ideas.”

While the Commissioner conceded there would be ways people could manipulate the app, he said starting the conversation was critical.

15,000 women in NSW came forward to report assaults in 2020, a 10 per cent increase on the year before, but only two per cent of those led to guilty verdicts in court.