The launch of new national guidance on protecting older people from technology-facilitated abuse marks an important step forward in safeguarding.  Police forces across England and Wales are now better equipped to identify when smart devices – door locks, trackers, call blockers and other tools – are being misused to isolate or control vulnerable adults.

This is welcome progress.  Yet policy cannot stop at issuing guidance.  The challenge of tech-enabled abuse highlights a larger structural problem: the distance between national initiatives and the lived reality of older people in rural and semi-rural communities.

Older people at risk often live far from professional services.  Many rely on neighbours, parish networks, and local groups for everyday support.  Digital literacy is uneven, broadband coverage is patchy, and formal interventions are slow to arrive.  And some of us don’t know how to do what we are asked to do.

What is needed is localism – the deliberate strengthening of informal, community-based systems alongside the formal sector.  Localism brings three policy advantages:

• Early detection.  Local actors – such as GPs, pharmacists, community wardens, and faith groups – are far more likely to notice subtle patterns of tech misuse than a remote helpline.
• Rapid response.  When trust is embedded in neighbourhood networks, intervention can be swifter and more humane, reducing the need for escalation to crisis services.
• Sustainable resilience.  Embedding safeguarding knowledge in communities ensures that new threats – from emerging devices to changing social dynamics – can be met flexibly and adaptively.

National governments and police forces should therefore view the new guidance not as an end in itself, but as a resource to be localised.  Training and materials must be filtered down to the smallest units of community life, from parish councils to volunteer groups.

The misuse of technology against older people is not simply a policing issue.  It is a social issue – and one that reveals how fragile safety can be when formal systems operate in isolation.  By embedding safeguarding practices in localism, we can create a protective mesh that ensures older citizens remain both safe and autonomous in the digital age.

As an 88-year-old, I frequently encounter examples of younger people and government departments assuming that I can adapt to new technology.  As an example:

The government’s proposal for a nationwide NHS App, available on smartphones, to act as a single digital gateway for healthcare.  It would enable people to book GP appointments, order repeat prescriptions, view their medical records, obtain health advice, and access vaccination and test results, aiming to make NHS services more efficient and accessible.

However,, Tim Watkins points out, that It is not unreasonable to conclude that the proposed UK digital ID system will require electricity which currently doesn’t exist.  Not least because the UK already faces a 60GW shortage resulting from the bans on internal combustion vehicles and gas heating within the next decade.

So, like so much today – it won’t work.