Is changing your passwords after separation mandatory? Or not? Well, let’s be clever here. You are now separated, and you are not only entitled to your privacy, but you need to claim it.
It’s very important that you have healthy boundaries with your ex-partner. You may think he or she would never betray your confidence, but they do, believe me, we have had many stories about exes who snoop. You should change all personal online passwords and security questions immediately after a separation, and changing your passwords right after a separation can save you a lot of trouble down the line.
We once had a client who had access to their ex-partner’s email. They were logging in and looking at every email between them and their solicitor, knowing every move and all the legal advice from their family law solicitors Gold Coast that their ex was receiving. This is awful behaviour and only leads to difficulties. It’s not helpful to know what advice the other side is receiving, and evidence anyone discovers via such snooping generally can’t be used in court anyway.
Another client was on the receiving end of the snooping. She had forgotten to change her iCloud password, and her ex-partner had gone into her account and changed the settings to family sharing so he could see everything. She had moved on to a new relationship, and everything she was doing, all the pictures she was sharing, was accessible on her ex-husband’s device.
When she found out, she was mortified, as you would be. It led not only to her embarrassment but also to further difficulties in resolving her matter, and ultimately to disputes over her child custody schedule that could otherwise have been avoided.
This kind of monitoring isn’t limited to married couples either, with cohabitation on the rise in Australia, de facto partners share just as many digital accounts, devices, and passwords as married couples do, and the same risks apply the moment you separate.
Change 100% of All of Your Passwords
It’s important that you change all of your passwords, including your bank PINs, internet banking and telephone banking passcodes, email passwords, and social media passwords, and that you have strict privacy settings in place to prevent snooping.
Other important passwords to change are those for devices, iCloud, Dropbox or other online storage caches, online subscriptions and family sharing, any shopping sites with saved credit card numbers, and possibly most importantly, myGov and all its linked portals, Centrelink, Medicare, Child Support, and the ATO.
Your identity is very hard to recover once compromised, and this applies whatever your income sources look like, even less conventional ones, our article on whether OnlyFans is illegal touches on why keeping any income-related account secure and properly disclosed matters during a separation.
If you’re also planning to revert to your maiden name after separation, it’s worth doing your password and account clean-up first, since updating your name across banking, myGov, and other accounts is far easier once you’re no longer sharing logins with your former partner.
A genuinely complete list should also cover:
- Physical devices, including your phone, tablet, laptop, digital assistants, and USB drives or external hard drives
- Cloud accounts, such as Apple ID, Google accounts, Dropbox, Google Drive, and Microsoft OneDrive
- Utility accounts for your home
- Shopping and online payment accounts, like eBay and PayPal
- Banking accounts, credit cards, and debit cards
- Rewards points accounts and frequent flyer programs
- Private health insurance and superannuation accounts
- Shared service accounts, such as a family Uber profile
- Messaging apps, including WhatsApp and iMessage
- Shared digital subscriptions and streaming accounts, like Netflix and Spotify
- School portals and school-related apps, if you have children, this matters just as much if you’re navigating changing a child’s school without the other parent’s consent or working out whether one parent can enrol a child in school without the other’s permission, since shared login access can otherwise let a former partner see or alter enrolment details you’d rather they didn’t
It’s genuinely worth setting up a brand new email account your former partner has never known, before you touch anything else, since password reset confirmations for every other account will usually go to whichever email address is on file. If that’s still a shared or known address, your “secure” new password can be reset right back by someone who still has access to your inbox.
When you actually update passwords, changing the final digit or adding a single capital letter isn’t enough. A former partner who knows your patterns can often guess a lazy variation. Choose something genuinely new and unrelated to birthdays, children’s names, or pets, unless you deliberately make it hard to guess.
It’s also worth checking whether your devices are signed in on multiple screens, most platforms let you sign out of all devices at once, and this is worth doing as soon as possible, alongside removing yourself from any Apple ID or Google account that’s synced with your former partner’s devices.
Before you do, download anything you want to keep, photos, documents, contacts, since you’ll lose access once you leave a shared account. Check that location-sharing features like Find My Friends, Find My iPhone, or an Android device manager can no longer show your whereabouts, and turn off family sharing entirely if it’s still active.
So often we have clients who don’t do this, even though we direct them to, because they believe their ex-partner doesn’t know their passwords and it seems like such a hassle. Honestly, you just don’t know for sure, and though it’ll obviously take a few hours, it’ll be worth every minute to know that your information, identity, finances, and communications are secure.
So many times, we’ve had clients come in with information they should never have known about their ex-partner, correspondence between them and their lawyer included. People can be sneaky, and your ex-partner now has different objectives than before. So please, you should update passwords across everything, not just the obvious ones.
Be Careful What You Post
Even once your accounts are secure, it’s worth thinking twice before posting anything about your separation, your children, or your family law matter on social media or elsewhere. Under section 121 of the Family Law Act 1975, publishing material identifying parties to family law proceedings can be a criminal offence, carrying penalties that include imprisonment.
Even with your former partner removed as a “friend” and strict privacy settings in place, mutual friends can still pass on what you post, and anything you share may end up as evidence in court regardless of your privacy settings.
Stop Snooping
That leads us to talk briefly about any snooping you might be tempted to do yourself. It’s not clever to snoop. No, no, no. It will not give you the upper hand, and it could land you in hot water.
Do not log into accounts that aren’t yours, even if you still know the password, since it won’t advance your case and evidence obtained by unauthorised or fraudulent means generally can’t be used to support your case at all.
Beyond the evidentiary problem, accessing someone’s accounts without consent, tracking their location, or recording private conversations without agreement can amount to technology-facilitated stalking or family violence in its own right, a pattern the eSafety Commissioner specifically warns about, and in more serious or repeated cases, this kind of behaviour is exactly the pattern our article on coercive control describes.
It can expose you to criminal penalties and can also form the basis of a domestic violence order being made against you, or become a genuine reason to seek a revocation of an existing intervention order if the behaviour comes from the protected party instead. If you’re on the receiving end of this kind of monitoring and feel unsafe, 1800RESPECT is available for confidential support at any hour.
Your snooping may also end up needing to be disclosed later, which is embarrassing in its own right. Beyond that, a lot of what you’ll find will simply make you anxious without being helpful.
Full and honest financial disclosure is still required during a property settlement, so there’s rarely a genuine need to go digging, whether you’re heading toward an even split or something closer to a 70/30 divorce settlement, if your former partner is hiding assets, that’s something to raise properly through your lawyer, not uncover through someone else’s inbox.
This applies just as much to a question like whether your girlfriend can take half your house, the answer comes from proper legal advice and disclosure, not from reading someone’s private messages.
It’s also worth doing the reverse exercise on yourself, search your own name online and check what’s publicly visible, since it’s often one of the first things your former partner or their lawyer will do too. If anything problematic turns up, flag it with your own family lawyer.
Speak With Our Team about Changing Your Passwords After Separation
If you’d like to discuss fee management or talk in depth about your family law matter, contact Collective Family Law Group on 5574 0971 to arrange an initial consultation on Zoom or at one of our offices, with Hayder Shkara, Caralee Fontenele, Julie Fotheringham, or another member of our experienced team.
This article is general information only and does not constitute legal advice. For guidance specific to your circumstances, speak with a family lawyer.
Frequently Asked Questions
Should I block my husband during separation?
It depends on your circumstances. If communication has become hostile, threatening, or is being used to control or monitor you, blocking or restricting contact to a single agreed channel, such as email or a co-parenting app, is often sensible. If you have children together, some form of respectful, practical communication usually still needs to continue, so complete blocking isn’t always realistic, but you’re entitled to set firm boundaries around how and when that contact happens.
Is it okay to have no contact after a separation?
Generally, yes, if there are no children involved and no shared financial or legal matters that require ongoing communication. Where children or property matters are involved, some level of contact, even if limited to necessary logistics, is usually unavoidable, though it can be managed through writing, a co-parenting app, or your lawyers rather than direct conversation if that works better for you.
Can you reconcile after separation?
Yes, reconciliation is entirely possible, and it happens reasonably often. If you’re married, be aware that reconciliation attempts lasting more than three months in total can affect the 12-month separation period required before applying for divorce, so it’s worth understanding the timing implications if you’re genuinely trying to work things out. If you’ve already changed passwords or started formal proceedings, reconciling doesn’t undo anything automatically, you’d need to actively unwind any steps you’ve taken.
What are some important things to consider when separating from your spouse?
Protecting your digital security and privacy, understanding your financial position and any joint accounts or debts, working out living and parenting arrangements if you have children, and getting legal advice early are all important. It’s also worth being mindful of what you post publicly, and resisting the urge to access your former partner’s accounts or information, since both can create real legal problems later in your matter.
