How to hide your visit to our website

Find ways to protect your privacy

There’s no shame in looking for help or information about sexualized violence. But we know you may want to protect your privacy. This guide will help you hide your digital traces from other people.

What are digital traces?

Digital traces are information about what you’ve been doing while using your computer, phone or other digital device. This can include things like:

  • Websites you visited.
  • Words you searched.
  • Your answers to online forms.
  • Videos you watched online.
  • Files and images you downloaded.

It’s easy to create digital traces without even knowing it. And it’s possible for other people to see your digital traces, especially if they have access to your devices or know your passwords.

Can I hide my digital traces?

It’s difficult to stop creating digital traces completely. But there are a few simple things you can do to help protect your privacy.

You probably use an internet browser such as Firefox, Chrome, Safari, Edge or Internet Explorer.

Browsers save information as you use them – this is called ‘browsing data’. If someone looks at your browsing data they’ll be able to see what you’ve been doing online.

There’s a simple way around this. Open a ‘private’ or ‘incognito’ window. Anything you do in this window won’t show up in your browsing data.

Remember to close the window when you’re done.

You may also want to delete any files you downloaded to your device.

You can delete your browsing data if it’s already been saved. Depending on your browser you’ll normally find this option under History, Preferences or Settings.

You can choose what types of information to delete, such as browsing history and cached images. It’s often best to select all types, just to be sure.

You can also choose when you want to delete data from, such as the past 24 hours, the whole month, or all time.

Is your browser connected to your Google account? If so, your data can be saved on both your device and the cloud. Go to Data and Privacy in Google’s account settings to make sure your data is cleared on the cloud too.

You may also want to delete any files you downloaded to your device.

Files are saved on your device when you download them. For example, you may have downloaded one of the PDFs on our resources page.

Hiding or deleting your browsing data won’t hide your downloaded files. You’ll need to delete the files if you don’t want anyone to find them.

When you delete a file, it often goes to the ‘trash’ or ‘recycle bin’ where it can still be found by someone. You’ll need to empty your trash to completely remove the file from your device.