Report it to eSafety. But capture it first.
Australia is the only country with a regulator that can order a platform to take abusive material down. That is exactly why the record disappears. A removal notice can require the content to go within 24 hours, and once it is gone, so is your proof that it was ever there.
Works on Chrome and Edge. From $4.99 (about A$7) as a one-off, or a 7-day trial that requires a credit card.
burner_acct_88
Posted 2 hours ago · public
“Everyone is going to see exactly who she really is. I will keep reposting this until she deletes her account.”
Removed by the platform 18 hours later. Nothing left to look at.
Captured & sealed
SHA-256 · Bitcoin timestamp
Illustrative example. Fictional account, not a real post.
Before you report online abuse to the eSafety Commissioner, preserve the material. Reports under the image-based abuse, adult cyber abuse and cyberbullying schemes rely on you providing the location of the content and evidence of what it says or shows. eSafety itself advises collecting evidence first, because a successful report ends with the content removed, and after that nothing is left to look at. ProofSnap captures the page in about forty seconds and produces a package containing a full-page screenshot, the saved page source, the URL, the capture time in UTC, a SHA-256 hash of every file, an RSA-4096 signature and a Bitcoin blockchain timestamp. That record stays usable long after the post is gone, whether the matter goes to eSafety, to police, to a personal safety intervention order or nowhere at all. From $4.99 (about A$7) as a one-off purchase, with no subscription.
By Radim Motycka, Founder and Lead Engineer, ProofSnap · · Independently verifiable via Trust Verifier
What usually goes wrong
The evidence disappears at the moment things start working
Every path out of online abuse ends with the content being deleted. That is the point. It is also the problem, because a deleted post proves nothing on its own.
Removal erases the record
A removal notice can require the service to act within 24 hours. If your only copy was the live page, you now have a report about something nobody else can see. Capturing first costs you under a minute and changes nothing about how fast you report.
The poster deletes first
People who send abusive material often remove it themselves once they realise it has been noticed, sometimes within minutes. Accounts get deactivated, stories expire, messages are unsent. A capture made while it is live is not something they can undo.
A phone screenshot invites an argument
An image file carries no proof of when it was made or whether it was edited. If the same material later matters in a court or a tribunal, the other side will say exactly that, and they will be entitled to.
What the schemes actually ask you for
The Online Safety Act 2021 gives eSafety several distinct schemes. They differ in who they protect, but they agree on one thing: you have to show where the material is and what it contains.
Image-based abuse
Covers intimate images or videos shared, or threatened to be shared, without consent. Between August 2018 and June 2023 the scheme received 19,468 reports, of which 62.1 per cent concerned sexual extortion. eSafety can direct the service, the host or the person who posted the material to remove it.
Adult cyber abuse
For Australians aged 18 and over, covering material that is menacing, harassing or offensive and intended to cause serious harm. It was the first scheme of its kind anywhere. A service that ignores a removal notice can face a civil penalty of up to 500 penalty units, and a corporation can face five times that. The dollar value of a penalty unit is set by Commonwealth legislation and indexed periodically, so check the current value rather than an amount quoted in an older article.
Cyberbullying of a child
For material targeting an Australian child. Reports work best when you can show the account, the wording and the pattern over time, which usually means capturing more than one page and on more than one day.
Illegal and restricted content
eSafety asks for evidence of where the material is located so it can be found and removed quickly. A capture that carries the exact URL, the page source and a verifiable timestamp answers that question in one file.
One practical warning about your own safety
If the material is an intimate image of a person under 18, do not download, copy or forward it, including to preserve it. Report it to eSafety and to police and let them handle the material itself. ProofSnap is for the public page, the profile, the threatening message or the demand for payment, which is usually what proves the conduct anyway. If you are in immediate danger, call 000. For support, 1800RESPECT is available on 1800 737 732.
Three steps, about forty seconds
No forensic training required. The proof is in the package, not in your testimony about how careful you were.
Open the page and capture
Open the profile, post, comment thread or message window in Chrome or Edge and start the capture from the side panel. The whole page is captured, not just the part on screen.
The package seals itself
Every file is hashed with SHA-256, the manifest is signed, and the manifest hash is anchored to the Bitcoin blockchain. The capture time is recorded in UTC, independent of your device clock.
Report, then keep the ZIP
Lodge the report at esafety.gov.au with the URL. Keep the ZIP. If the matter later reaches police, a tribunal or a court, the record is already in a form that anyone can verify.
What lands in the evidence package
Between 11 and 15 files depending on your plan, delivered as one ZIP that anyone can check without installing anything.
Full-page screenshot
The whole page, not just the visible window, stitched and hashed.
Saved page source
The document as rendered at capture time, including the head, meta tags and structured data.
Extracted page text
Searchable plain text, so a quote can be found and cited without retyping.
Technical metadata
URL, page title, HTTP response headers, browser, operating system and the capture time in UTC.
Signed manifest
SHA-256 for every file, signed with an RSA-4096 key whose public key ships in the package.
Blockchain timestamp
The manifest hash anchored to Bitcoin via OpenTimestamps, so the capture time cannot be backdated.
Chain of custody and forensic log
A record of what happened during the capture, in the order it happened.
Evidence report as PDF
A readable summary you can attach to an application, a notice or a report.
Verification instructions
Written steps plus scripts, so the other side can re-check the hashes offline.
Where all of that comes from
Every file above is produced by one press in the side panel, while the post is still on screen. You do not assemble anything, name anything or remember to record the time, which matters because the moment you find abusive material is rarely the moment you are thinking clearly about evidence.
The panel stays open beside the page, so you can capture a profile, a comment thread and a message window one after another and end up with a separate sealed package for each.
Want to see what comes out before you install anything? Download a sample evidence package and open it yourself.
Anyone can verify it, including the other side. Drop the ZIP onto the public Trust Verifier and the hashes, the signature and the timestamp are checked in the browser. Nothing is uploaded and nothing depends on ProofSnap still existing.
Three ways to get the evidence
Prices are charged in USD. Approximate Australian figures are shown for orientation only, and your card issuer sets the actual rate.
One dispute
$4.99 once
about A$7
A SnapPack is a single up-front purchase for a set number of captures. No subscription, no auto-renewal, no trial. Best when you have one problem and you want it documented today.
Get a SnapPackOngoing matters
$8.99/month
about A$13
For anyone who captures regularly: practitioners, property managers, HR, investigators. The 7-day free trial requires a credit card. Cancel any time during the trial and you are not charged.
Start the 7-day trialWe do it for you
$44.99 per URL
about A$64
Send us the link and our team captures the package for you, with nothing to install. Useful when the capture should not come from a party to the dispute.
See the capture serviceProofSnap is not a law firm and does not give legal advice. Qualified timestamps are issued by Disig a.s., a Qualified Trust Service Provider on the EU Trusted List. Australia has no equivalent regime, so that timestamp is independent corroboration here rather than a legal presumption.
Official sources
Every figure and deadline on this page comes from the following primary sources. Check them yourself rather than taking our word for it.
- eSafety Commissioner: How to collect evidence on noting the URL and the profile, and on capturing before you block or delete.
- eSafety Commissioner: Report online harm the reporting portal for all four schemes.
- eSafety Commissioner: Image-based abuse what the scheme covers and how removal works.
- Online Safety Act 2021 the Act itself, on the Federal Register of Legislation.
eSafety puts it plainly in its own guidance: collect the evidence first, because it can be difficult to prove what happened once the person who targeted you has been blocked. It also warns against screenshotting illegal and restricted content, which is why the safety note above matters more than any feature on this page.
Questions people actually ask
Removal is the goal. Losing the proof is not.
Capture the page while it is still there, then report it. The record outlives the takedown.