Cover your tracks online

How can an abuser discover your internet activities?

Please take a few minutes to read the warning below and to take steps to increase your safety when visiting this website.

As a rule, internet browsers will save certain information as you surf the internet. This includes images from websites visited, information entered into search engines and a trail (‘history’) that reveals the sites you have visited. Please follow the instructions below to minimize the chances of someone finding out that you have visited this website.

If you know what browser you are using, then skip to the relevant instructions below. If you do not know the type of browser you are using, click on Help on the toolbar at the top of the browser screen. A drop down menu will appear, the last entry will say About Internet Explorer, About Mozilla Firefox, or something similar. The entry refers to which browser type you are using – you should then refer to the relevant instructions below

Private browsing

All leading web browsers have a “private browsing” mode that, once enabled, stores nothing about your activity on your computer in that browsing window. This won’t stop online services from seeing what you get up to, but it won’t leave any traces of your activity on your computer (no history, web cache or anything else) and so it’s always a useful first step to take.

Internet Explorer: Go to Safety – Tools – “InPrivate Browsing”.

Firefox: Click the Menu button with three horizontal lines – “New Private Window”.

Chrome: Click the Menu button with three horizontal lines and select “New Incognito Window”.

Similar options can be found in Opera and Safari.

It is also best to double check that nothing has been stored by following the steps below.

Internet Explorer

Click on the Tools menu and select Internet Options. On the General page, under Temporary Internet Files, click on Delete Cookies and then OK. Click on Delete Files, put a tick in the box labelled Delete all offline content and click OK. Under History, click on Clear History and then OK. Now look at the top of the window and click on the Content tab, select AutoComplete and finally, Clear Forms.

Firefox

Click on Tools and then Options, then click on Privacy. Click on the Clear button next to Cache and Saved Form Information.

Deleting your browsing history

Internet browsers also keep a record of all the web pages you visit. This is known as a ‘history’. To delete history for Internet Explorer and Firefox hold down the Ctrl key on the keyboard, then press the H key (Crtl, Alt and H for Opera). Find any entries that say www.womensaid.org.uk, right click and choose Delete.

Email

If an abuser sends you threatening or harassing email messages, they may be printed and saved as evidence of this abuse. Any email you have previously sent will be stored in Sent Items. If you started an email but didn’t finish it, it might be in your Drafts folder. If you reply to any email, the original message will probably be in the body of the message – print and delete the email if you don’t want anyone to see your original message.

When you delete an item in any email program (Outlook Express, Outlook, etc) it does not really delete the item – it moves the item to a folder called Deleted Items. You have to delete the items in deleted items separately. Right click on items within the Deleted Items folder to delete individual items.

Toolbars

Toolbars such as Google, AOL and Yahoo keep a record of the search words you have typed into the toolbar search box. In order to erase all the search words you have typed in, you will need to check the individual instructions for each type of toolbar. For example, for the Google toolbar all you need to do is click on the Google icon, and choose “Clear Search History”.

Don’t forget to log out

If you use our Survivor’s Forum, don’t forget to log out of your account when you have finished your browsing session so no one else can log in as you.

Exit site button

The green Exit Site button on the right of the Women’s Aid website will quickly hide the page but you will still need to delete your history to fully cover your tracks.

General security

If you do not use a password to log on to your computer, someone else will be able to access your email and track your internet usage. The safest way to find information on the internet, would be at a local library, a friend’s house, or at work.

All of the above information may not completely hide your tracks. Many browser types have features that display recently visited sites. The safest way to find information on the internet, would be at a local library, a friend’s house, or at work.

Further information and support about online and digital abuse

If you need to contact us with a messageboard query please allow at least 48 – 72 hours for any response.

When contacting a moderator make sure you use an email address that we can safely reply to. If this is different to your registered address please tell us your registered address in the email.

You can contact the moderator by clicking on the “Contact Moderator” tab at the top of the page or you can also contact us by emailing: survivors-forum@womensaid.org.uk

This is a peer-to-peer support network and the moderator is on hand to keep the forum safe and supportive for everyone. There is a moderator online for a period every day and they check each post and user registration to remove identifying details and ensure safety and security for survivors. They assist with safeguarding, signposting and technical issues. For more information on this, please refer to the Forum Guidelines or Terms and Conditions.

You can read our page on signposting and support for additional information. This includes information on Women’s Aid services and resources, directories for local support and additional information on who you can contact if you need to know more about benefits, counselling, legal advice, sexual violence support, and much more. There are links and phone numbers for specialist services in multiple areas and if there’s another area you’d like to see more resources on, let us know and we’ll have a look at what we can add.

You can register for the forum by clicking on the Sign Up tab in the toolbar to the top of the page or by clicking on the pink Register button the Survivors’ Forum homepage.

For safety reasons please choose a non-identifiable username. E.g. don’t include a pets name, date or year of birth, hometown etc.

You will be notified that your registration has been approved by email. This can sometimes take a few hours as each request has to be approved by the moderator.

You can still browse the forum until your account is approved and if you need urgent support please contact the National Domestic Violence Helpline on 0808 2000 247

When you receive your activation email, don’t forget to click on the link in your email to activate your account.

Register Now

Once you’ve registered, you’ll need to use the activation key that’s been sent to the email address you used to register. This will activate your account and let us know that the right email address is connected.

The forum moderator reviews new registrations each weekday morning and will approve your request or let you know if there are any identifying details (like names, birthdays) in your username that might need to be removed. Please bear with us while you wait for your request to be approved, but feel free to email the moderator if you’re concerned about your registration.

The forum moderators will notify you when your registration has been rejected. Reasons we reject registrations include:

Identifying username – Unfortunately we cannot accept your registration if the username you have given may identify you on this forum.  Please select an alternative non-identifying username and re-register. Please bear in mind that this Forum is open to all members of the public and that any nickname, which may identify you, may put you at risk.

Inappropriate username –  We cannot accept your registration if the username you have given is not acceptable on this forum. Please re-register with an alternative username.

Male users – We cannot accept your registration because the Survivors’ Forum is only open to women, as Women’s Aid is funded to support women and children only. If you require support as a male victim of domestic abuse, please visit www.mensadviceline.org.uk. If you require support as a perpetrator of domestic abuse, please visit www.respect.uk.net

If you’d like more information about why your registration was rejected, you can email the moderator.

Don’t worry if you have forgotten your password.

You can easily re-set it by clicking on the “Log in” tab on the menu at the top right of your screen and clicking on the “Lost your password?” link at the bottom of the login form.

Your profile

This is a hub for all of your activity on the forum. Once you are logged in you can access it by clicking on your username which is below the pink login icon on the left of your page.

OR you can click on the How are you? link in the pink bar at the very to[ of your page.

Your profile is where you can see notifications for when people have responded to your posts, read and send private messages, and view your activity on the Forums. Explore your profile by clicking on the large icons.

Search

To search for a particular user, topic or word, you can use the search icon at the top of the page.

Just click the icon, type the word/s and press ‘enter’.

The Survivors’ Forum has a number of individual forums on different themes, questions or aspects of domestic abuse for you to explore and contribute to. You can view these on the Messageboards page. See here

These forums group together discussions (Topics) on key themes to make it easy for you to find support, information, and talk to survivors who may have similar questions or experiences.

The conversations are organised by theme into different messageboards but if you want to see the latest conversations from all boards click on the “Topics” button above the Login bubble on the right of the screen. Go here

From time to time, we’ll add new information, resources and surveys to the Survivors’ Voices page. You will need to log in to access this page.

“Topics” are how you start a new conversation (like a thread) on the forum. Before creating a new topic, take a look to see if there are already discussions happening on this theme by using the search bar or reading through the other topics.

To create a new topic. Select the messageboard that most closely matches your thoughts or query. Choose a messageboard here.

Click on the button that says “New Topic” (see below).

This will take you to the “Create New Topic” box at the very bottom of the page (see below).

Type in the title of your topic, this could be a question or a theme, and then type in your post in the larger box below. You can add some tags to your topic to help people find it e.g. domestic abuse, refuge etc. When you are finished click submit.

You can write a reply to a comments in a thread by typing in the, “Reply to:” box at the bottom of the thread, then clicking, “submit”.

Replying to individual posts

If you want to reply to a particular comment in a thread of conversation you can click on the “Reply” button above that particular comment and it will take you to a box. Type your reply then click “submit” and your post will appear below their comment.

If someone has responded to a topic or post you’ve created, you’ll see the responses pop up in your profile notifications.

You can view your notifications quickly by going to the “Notifications” tab on the side of the page.

Or view them in your profile by clicking on your username under the pink login bubble, click “Notifications” and then you can view your “Read” or “Unread” notifications.

They will have needed to reply to your post in particular, so if they reply to a thread without clicking reply on your comment, you won’t receive a notification.

If you see something a survivor has posted and you think that the moderator should take a look at it, you can flag this with Lisa. Please contact us at survivors-forum@womensaid.org.uk with a screenshot of the post. Please give us more information if it is not immediately obvious why you want to report the post or why you may have concerns.

Please remember that this forum is public and can be read by anyone; including perpetrators.

The moderators will have to edit or even remove a post if you include any details that may identify you on the forum. e.g. names or ages of family members, pets, place names etc. or details of court cases.

Contempt of court happens when somebody risks unfairly influencing a court case. It may stop somebody from getting a fair trial and can affect a trial’s outcome. This can include commenting on a court case for example on social media or on an online forum.

We cannot allow discussions on details of a case as this could affect the case. Do not post any details regarding court proceedings (whether criminal or civil).

Do not post a comment which could damage the reputation of a named organisation or individual – this is called libel and is against the law.

As your topic includes posts from other people you will need to contact the moderator and explain why you want it taken down to get it removed. Email: survivors-forum@womensaid.org.uk

You can edit posts for 5 mins after you have written them by clicking on the “Edit” button above your post.

After 5 mins you will only be able to delete your post. To do this click on the “Bin” button above your post.

You are now able to send private messages to other survivors instead of requesting private email addresses from the moderators.

This works in a similar way to other social media messaging survivor so you can message one or more survivors at any time. It is not designed to replace conversations on the forum but is a great way to connect in a more informal way with other survivors.

WARNING – These conversations will not be moderated by Women’s Aid so we ask that you respect the guidelines of the forum and be extremely careful about sharing any identifying information or details of court cases.

It is also important to respect each other’s well-being so if someone feels unable to respond, please do not take it personally and give them space.

You are under no obligation to respond to private messages.

How do I view my private messages?

You can view your private messages by clicking either the “How are you” tab at the top of the page or your username underneath the Login icon.

Click on the “Messages” icon to view your inbox, sent items and notices from the moderators.

How do I send a private message?

1. Use the compose section of your messaging inbox and type the username of the person you wish to send it to (this can be more than one person), type your message and click submit.

Or

2. To look up someone’s username go to the Members page, use the search bar to find the person you wish to message and click “Private message” to open up the message box.

How do I report a private message?

Private messages aren’t visible to the moderator so if someone is being abusive or breaking the forum guidelines you can report this behaviour by taking a screenshot of the message and emailing it to the moderator: survivors-forum@womensaid.org.uk

We have set the site to automatically log you out after 15 minutes of inactivity (e.g. not scrolling or clicking on the page at all). This is to protect your safety so if someone else were to use your device while you were away, they would not be able to access your account and messages. You can prevent your account from being logged out by moving your mouse from time to time when you are reading a post. If you’re writing a particularly long post, it could be good to save a draft in a safe place where no-one else would have access if you want to step away before posting, so that you don’t lose the draft.

Confirmation emails sometimes go into your junk/spam folders in your email but some email providers have very strong filters and it’s possible that it could have been deleted.

If you still haven’t received an email after an hour, contact the moderator: survivors-forum@womensaid.org.uk

We regularly update the forum to make sure that the features and security are up-to-date.

If you are having technical difficulties with the forum it could be that your computer is running an older version.

Clear your cache

To ensure you see the latest version of a site you need to clear the cache memory on your computer.

Go to: http://www.refreshyourcache.com/en/ and follow the instructions for your browser.

Still having problems? Send us a screenshot

If you are still having difficulties with the site please contact the moderator and give us as much detail as possible about the problems you are experiencing. Sending us a screenshot of any issues you are having will help us to understand and address the issue quickly.

Email: survivors-forum@womensaid.org.uk

Our automated system sometimes prevents access, for instance, if there is a potential breach of terms and conditions or there’s an unusual amount of activity posted. If you’d like more information on why this might have happened, email us and we’ll try to work out what’s happened and restore your access. Please include information on your IP address if possible by entering “what is my IP” into a search engine and sending the set of 4 numbers to us so we can quickly identify your device.

Notify the moderator that you wish to change your username and they will arrange this for you: survivors-forum@womensaid.org.uk

You can view the forum in more than 100 other languages by using the accessibility toolbar. You can open the toolbar by clicking on the Accessibility button at the top right of your screen, which is above the search icon. It will also appear on every page of our website. If you want to close the toolbar and all of its functions, just click the cross button on the right side. For more on how to use the toolbar, visit our user guide.

With all of the accessibility toolbar options, these will only be changes for you so you can personalise your experience according to what you need, and this won’t impact on how the forum appears for other users.

You are welcome to customise your personal experience of the forum however at the moment we cannot support posting in languages other than English unfortunately. This is because every forum post is moderated in order to ensure there are no identifying details or safety risks.

Translations appearing on the forum may have the occasional inaccuracy due to the limitations of the translation software.

You can find specific guidance on how to open the toolbar and use each of its functions in the user guide, as well as notes on how best to use this safely.

From time to time, it really helps if Women’s Aid can draw on the experiences of survivors to influence policymakers and gain support for the work we do (eg. use in a funding bid or marketing campaign). We ask for consent for this during the registration process, and if you change your mind at any stage, you can email or instant message the moderator asking for your permission settings to be changed.

We know that it can be frustrating to not be allowed to swear, but sometimes swear words can upset others. Swear words (this includes asterisks!) are automatically hidden from view

The Survivors’ Forum is only for women who are experiencing domestic violence and for nothing else.

Unfortunately we do not allow professionals to post or request information from the women who use the forum as this would detract from its purpose.

The women rely on the forum to be a safe space for them to share and support each other and we feel that we cannot upset that balance in any way.

You may find our dedicated service for professionals useful.

Welcome to the forum. It is really positive that you are actively searching for information to help your relative/friend. It is really important that you get the right information on how best to support your relative/friend and you may find our “I’m worried about someone else” page useful.

The Survivors’ Forum has been set up specifically to support survivors of domestic abuse and at this stage not in a position to support friends or family members.  If you would like to continue to post on the forum about your own experiences, then please feel free to do so.

However, if you need further information and support regarding your relative/friends situation, then please consider contacting our Live Chat service. The Live Chat support workers will be able to provide you with options available and further information on how best to support your relative/friend.  They can also put you in touch with a local domestic abuse service in your area, if you wish.

The Survivors’ Forum is for the sole purpose of survivors supporting each other through discussion in a safe space. It is publicly available for the benefit of other survivors who may not yet be ready to join as a member. Due to the nature of the forum, it is therefore not appropriate to be used for research purposes and using it in this way raises a number of ethical concerns. For example:

• We at Women’s Aid cannot give consent on behalf of the survivors that post on the forum. Whether or not we believe your research to be for a good cause we cannot know if a survivor would be willing to be a participant.
• A survivor who has posted on the forum is unlikely to expect what she has written to be made available in other places. As a researcher you must be aware that a complete guarantee of anonymity is not possible when it comes to people who know you very well. Therefore, it could be very upsetting or even dangerous to use the words of a survivor intended for the forum in a research paper or other format.
• Survivors of domestic abuse are considered a vulnerable group under most ethical research guidelines and therefore carrying out research on them without their explicit consent raises ethical issues. Unfortunately, there is a history of misuse of data when it comes to research on domestic abuse.

Please take these factors into consideration when it comes to carrying out your research. The safety of survivors is our primary concern at Women’s Aid. For information on carrying out research on domestic abuse please see our research integrity framework.

We have a range of up-to-date statistics, materials, and reports available via our online evidence hub that may be of interest to you.