Personal safety online

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Maintaining your personal safety while browsing the Court website

This information may be useful for website users, in particular individuals experiencing domestic and family violence, to educate them on maintaining personal safety when browsing the Court website.

Quick exit button

The Court website provides a quick exit button for navigating away and hiding the current window. This allows you to quickly navigate away from our website if you are experiencing family violence or concerned about someone looking over your shoulder.

Located on the right side of every page, you can press this if you need to exit the website immediately. When pressed you will be automatically redirected to Google.

You can also use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+W (Windows) or Command+W (Apple) to close down the page you are viewing. Using this shortcut will shut down the browser tab you are viewing.

What the quick exit does

The quick exit button actions the immediate task to open a link to Google in the original browsing tab/window, google.com.

How this works and why

The task of opening a link to Google in the original browsing tab/window ensures that hiding content happens immediately and reduces the risk of the page you are browsing on our website being seen on your screen by others. This function will work in all browsers however please note this tab has a direct browser history. Therefore using the back button can return to the last page viewed on our website.

What the quick exit button can’t do

The quick exit cannot remove your browsing history. We can’t prevent our website from showing up in your website browsing history however you can delete your browser history and hide future browsing history.

Deleting browsing history

If you have concerns about others viewing your browsing history, it may be important to remove it when you have finished on our website.

For desktop browsers, to quickly open the menu used to clear your browsing history, ensure that the browser is open and press Ctrl+Shift+Delete (Windows) or Command+Shift+Delete (Apple). You will then have options of what you want to delete, and for what date range you would like to delete.

You can find further information for your specific browser in the links below.

Browsing private / incognito

Most browsers will allow you to switch to ‘private’ or ‘incognito’ mode as a way to browse the internet in private. Browsing the internet in incognito mode ensures the pages you view in incognito tabs are not recorded in your browsing or search history. Any files you download or bookmarks you create will stay when you close an incognito browser. You must close all of your incognito tabs when you have finished browsing.

Please visit eSafety Commissioner for further information on web browsers, how to browse safely and how to instructions.

Or alternatively visit the Australian Cyber Security Centre for more information on web browsers.

Further steps

If you or someone you know is experiencing online abuse as part of domestic and family violence, please visit the domestic and family violence section of the eSafety Commissioner website for advice and support to ensure you can continue to safely use technology and remain connected.

Some popular pages include:

Tips for staying safe online during the COVID-19 pandemic

Staying connected online during the pandemic is important now many of us are physically isolated from family, friends, colleagues and support networks. For up to date content on how to manage your risks online during the pandemic the eSafety Commissioners guide Tips for staying safe online during the COVID-19 pandemic is a useful resource.

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