SECTION 1. (a) For the purposes of this section, the following words shall have the following meanings:

“Coercive control,” a pattern of threatening, humiliating, or intimidating actions, which may include assaults, or other abuse that is used to harm, punish, or frighten an individual. “Coercive control” includes a pattern of behavior that seeks to take away the individual’s liberty or freedom and strip away the individual’s sense of self, including bodily integrity and human rights, whereby the “coercive control” is designed to make an individual dependent by isolating them from support, exploiting them, depriving them of independence, and regulating their everyday behavior including:

(i) Isolating the individual from friends and family or other sources of support;

(ii) Controlling, regulating, or monitoring the individual’s activities, communications, movements, finances, economic resources, or access to resources;

(iii) Name-calling, degradation, and demeaning the individual frequently;

(iv) Threatening to harm or kill the individual or a child or relative of the individual;

(v) Threatening to publish information or make false reports to the police or the authorities;

(vi) Damaging property or household goods; and

(vii) Forcing the individual to take part in criminal activity or child abuse.

“Technological abuse”, behavior intended to harm, threaten, intimidate, control, stalk, harass, impersonate, or monitor another person, except as otherwise permitted by law, that occurs via the Internet, social networking sites, computers, mobile devices, cellular telephones, apps, location tracking devices, instant messages, text messages, or other forms of technology.

(b) Section 1 of Chapter 209A of the General Laws is hereby amended by inserting the following after subsection (c) in the definition of “abuse”:-

(d) coercive control,

(e) technological abuse.

SECTION 2. The fourth sentence of Section 63 of ch. 277 of the General Laws, as appearing in the 2018 Official Edition, is hereby amended by inserting after the word “sections” the following words:- 13A, 13M