Quarter of the Dutch changes password only once a year

Quarter of the Dutch changes password only once a year

24-11-2016 11:03:59

PRESS RELEASE

Half share login information with others

Ede, 24 November, 2016 - On National Change-Your-Password-Day, it came to light that nearly a quarter of the Dutch people (24%) change their passwords only once a year and 35 percent even less than once a year. Nearly a third of the Dutch people (31%) changes their passwords every three months and no less than 10 percent never change them at all. This is a finding of a research conducted by BIT, specialist in collocation, internet connection, managed hosting and outsourcing, among 992 consumers with an office job. The findings are complied in the report "Internet stubborn".



Dutch password facts

The protection of our privacy is in our own hands. Discretely handling passwords is still lacking however. In order not to forget their passwords, almost 1 in 5 (18%) emails their passwords to themselves. No less than 40 percent shares their login data with one other person and 1 in 10 shares them with two or three others. 50 percent of the people indicate to keep their login information strictly to themselves.

For most Dutch people (47%), it is habitual to use two to five passwords for online logins. 1 in 3 (34%) uses up to 20 different passwords and four percent only one. Only 15% of the Dutch people uses a unique password for every service.

The research showed some significant differences. Consumers in the age category 18-34 changes their passwords less often (42%) and uses the passwords for more than 3 logins (63%), but people in the age category 35 and over write their passwords down on paper (42%).


Wido Potters, Manager Support & Sales at BIT, on the use of passwords in the Netherlands: "It is worrying that most Dutch people reuse their passwords. Unique passwords are very much necessary for protecting privacy. Unique passwords can easily be created on password generators, which can be found online, for free. I can imagine that it would be problematic to remember all those passwords, but there are good tools for that too, like password manager. This way, everyone can be a bit more safe on the internet, with their privacy secured."

More information on this research can be found in the report "internet stubborn" and can be downloaded here (Dutch).