The Reporting System That Sexual Assault Survivors Want

When the first step toward help requires immediately recounting an assault to someone who may disbelieve it, a system has already filtered out some voices. In this 2016 TED talk, Jessica Ladd reorganizes reporting around survivors’ needs. Hannah and Mike are illustrative characters, not the subjects of an identifiable case investigation.

Recording and reporting need not coincide

The proposal separates learning about options in a chosen setting, creating a timestamped record and deciding whether to submit information to an institution. This gives survivors more control over timing. Not being ready to initiate proceedings need not mean being denied support or losing every opportunity to preserve an account.

Its distinctive mechanism is information escrow: information is held until previously agreed conditions authorize release to a third party. The matching proposal connects records naming the same alleged perpetrator to an agreed reporting process. A survivor need not first establish that they are the only person affected. This describes a system presented at that time, not a guarantee about a currently available service.

Control requires more than encouragement to speak

The design redirects attention from why someone failed to report promptly toward the risks institutions impose. Matching does not adjudicate an allegation, and the absence of a match does not disprove an assault. Reporting, investigation and evidence assessment remain distinct responsibilities.

A timestamp does not automatically establish admissibility everywhere, and calling a website secure cannot prove its safety. Identity verification, access controls, withdrawal, mistaken matches and retention deserve separate evaluation. These are questions for assessing such systems, not claims that the prototype solved them all.

The talk works as an institutional design case, not instructions requiring use of a particular tool. Support should not depend on creating a digital record, and survivors who do not report should not be blamed for later harms. Additional options should expand control rather than impose new duties of self-documentation.

The Design Justice Network Principles extend the question to governance. CEDAW Recommendation 37 provides a comparison through confidential reporting as a public responsibility.