Your safety
Covering your tracks online
If someone has access to your device, they may be able to see what you have looked at. Here is what helps, and what does not.
Read this first
The Quick exit button on this site leaves the page immediately and stops the Back button returning to it. That is all it does. It does not erase your browsing history, your saved passwords, your address-bar suggestions, or anything already stored on the device.
If you are being monitored with spyware or a tracking app, clearing your history will not stop that either, and a suddenly empty history can itself look suspicious to someone who checks.
The safest option is always a device the other person has no access to: a friend’s phone, a work computer, or a library computer.
Use a private window
A private or incognito window does not save history, cookies or form entries for that session. Opening one before you browse is easier and safer than clearing history afterwards, because there is nothing to clear and nothing conspicuously missing.
It does not hide your activity from your internet provider, your employer’s network, or software installed on the device.
Clearing history afterwards
If you did not use a private window, you can delete your history, bearing in mind the warning above. Deleting everything is less conspicuous than deleting a single site, because a gap in an otherwise complete history is noticeable.
Safari (iPhone, iPad, Mac)
- History: Bookmarks icon → History → Clear.
- Private window: File → New Private Window (Mac), or the tabs icon then Private (iPhone).
Chrome (Android, Windows, Mac)
- History: menu (⋮) → History → Delete browsing data.
- Private window: menu (⋮) → New Incognito tab.
Edge
- History: menu (…) → History → Clear browsing data.
- Private window: menu (…) → New InPrivate window.
Firefox
- History: menu → History → Clear recent history.
- Private window: menu → New private window.
Email and messages
If you email us, the message stays in your Sent folder until you delete it, and in Trash or Bin after that, until you empty it. Check both. We reply from a plain email address, and nothing in the subject line identifies what the message is about.
If the account you use may be monitored, consider setting up a new account from a safe device and telling us to use that one instead.
Signs a device may be monitored
- The other person knows things you have not told them.
- Apps you did not install, or that you cannot remove.
- The battery drains much faster than it used to.
- They set up the device, the account, or the passwords.
- They insist on knowing your passcode, or on “checking” the device.
If any of that is familiar, treat the device as unsafe rather than trying to secure it. Removing monitoring software can alert whoever installed it, and that carries its own risk.
If you need help now
- 999 · Emergency services. If you or someone else is in immediate danger.
- +44 (0) 1624 679950 · Isle of Man Victim Support. Confidential support for victims of crime.
- 0808 2000 247 · National Domestic Abuse Helpline. Freephone, 24 hours a day (UK).