Automated Harm in the Smart Home: Internet of Things, Domestic Abuse, and the Gendered Gaps in European and Nordic Law

The rapid integration of smart home technologies into domestic life has created new risks in situations of intimate partner violence (IPV). Although Nordic states are often seen as leaders in digital governance and gender equality, existing EU and Nordic legal frameworks remain structurally underprepared to address Internet of Things (IoT)-enabled coercive control within shared domestic environments. The blind spot identified here lies not in empirical documentation, but in the translation of documented harms into legal concepts, regulatory frameworks, and enforcement practices. Through doctrinal analysis of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the Data Act, the Digital Services Act, and Nordic domestic violence legislation, with particular focus on Denmark and Sweden, the analysis demonstrates that prevailing legal models are built around individualised notions of the “user” or “data subject.” These models function in market-facing contexts but fail to capture relational asymmetries in digitally mediated homes. The article highlights the GDPR’s household exemption as a key jurisdictional boundary and situates this blind spot within broader equality and human rights obligations. It concludes by outlining a relationally aware approach to digital governance.