Survey: Half of Brits share passwords with partner, consequences not pretty

By Trevor Mogg September 7, 2011

Do you share your passwords with your partner for sites like Facebook, as well as for any email accounts you have?

According to a survey by computer security firm Norton, more than 50 percent of Brits under the age of 25 share login information. Of those aged between 45 to 54, the figure drops to around 30 percent.

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If you do share such personal information, do you mind if your partner logs in to your personal email account without you knowing? The results of the survey showed that 20 percent of British women confessed to accessing their partner’s email account or site such as Facebook without telling them. The figure for men was 10 percent.

And you can probably guess what occasionally happens when someone secretly logs into a partner’s private account. That’s right, they find something they wished they hadn’t, or worse, misunderstand something they read. And then it all kicks off.

The survey, reported by the Telegraph, revealed that 15 percent of women said that they had ended up having a row with their partner as a result of finding something they didn’t like after delving into their private accounts. Seven percent of men said the same.

Norton’s survey also looked at how honest people are about themselves in the online world. After questioning participants in the survey, 34 percent of online Brits confessed to lying or creating a false identity on sites such as Facebook.

About 10 percent said they had lied about their age online. After age, women were most likely to lie about their weight, whereas men would tell falsehoods about their financial situation.

Interestingly, younger people were less likely to to make things up online when trying to find a partner. Whereas 6 percent of those under 25 said they had been deceitful when attempting to attract a partner through, for example, a dating website, 12 per cent of over-25s said they had lied doing the same thing.

[Image courtesy of Yuri Arcurs / Shutterstock]

Topics

Cybersecurity

Contributing Editor

Not so many moons ago, Trevor moved from one tea-loving island nation that drives on the left (Britain) to another (Japan)…

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