We are committed to protecting your privacy and ensuring confidentiality. This website is a safe environment and no information given to us will be forwarded to anyone outside the charity unless in exceptional circumstances e.g. a child protection enquiry. Information about our child protection policy and procedures is available on request.
All our advisors are trained in confidentiality and child protection. If you have a concern about this site, please do contact us immediately by email, phone 0117 9603060 or write to us at Information Department, ERIC, 36 Old School House, Britannia Rd, Kingswood, Bristol, BS15 8DB.
Want to know what records we keep?
We do not keep any personal records, except in exceptional circumstances (see above). Any emails sent to the advisor are normally kept in our system for one year, for reference, and then deleted.
This site downloads a cookie on to your computer. Cookies help us to find out how many people have visited the site and which pages they have visited. Information on deleting or controlling cookies is available at www.AboutCookies.org. Please note that by deleting our cookies or disabling future cookies you may not be able to access certain areas or features of our site.
Technical Information
This site is best viewed with Microsoft Internet Explorer version 5 or later. It should work with Internet Explorer or Netscape Navigator from version 4 onwards, but we do not recommend Netscape 6/6.01. Parts of the site will not work with earlier versions. We have not tested the site with other browsers. This site has only been tested using the Microsoft Windows operating system.
If you are using Windows and you use the Large Fonts setting, you will find that the formatting of the pages is disrupted and you may find parts of the site are difficult to use, or that you have trouble scrolling from side to side.
Finally, when you are viewing the secure parts of the site, you may find that the back button sometimes does not work, and you get a Page Expired message. This is normal, because secure pages are not cached (a local copy kept to speed things up) by the browser.
If you experience technical problems, or you would like to report a mistake in the site, please contact the administrator (email), who will then pass it on to our IT support staff.
Cover your tracks
We would like to reassure all young people that there is no need to be ashamed about these conditions and assure you that they are more common than you probably think. However we also understand that it can be a sensitive area and if you prefer people not to know that you have visited this site, you can follow the steps below to cover your tracks.
Pages and links that you visit on the web are stored in temporary folders on your hard drive. People may be able to see which sites on the Internet you have visited by viewing the files in these folders.
In order to cover your tracks you need to:
- Delete all Temporary Internet files from your hard disk
- Delete all Links in your history folder
When in Internet Explorer 5.0 or 5.5 go to the menu bar at the top of the page. It looks like this:
- Click on Tools.
- Go to the bottom of the dropdown menu and click on Internet options. This will open a box with several choices along the top - General, Security, Content... You will already be in General, which is where you want to be.
- In the middle is a section marked Temporary Internet Files. Click on the button marked Delete files.
- When the box pops up, make sure you tick Delete all offline content box and then click OK.
- Go back to the General Internet Options box again.
- Go to the bottom section marked History. Click on the Clear History button.
- A dialog box will ask you if you want to delete all items in your history folder. Click Yes
- Click OK to close the Internet Options box You should now Restart or Shut down your computer. Once you have done this, you have successfully covered your tracks. Do this each time you visit us and no one need ever know you have been here.
Key Logging
There are simple hardware or software devices which can be used to record every key pressed on the keyboard, and thus find out your Nickname, User name and Password.
Our Internet based security cannot protect you against this kind of device.
If you suspect that the computer you are using is being monitored, then you should stop using this computer to access our site, and use a different computer that could not be monitored - at a friend's or in a library, school or youth club for instance.