Smartphone sharing with intimate partners: Implications for telecommunications consumer cybersecurity
Molly Dragiewicz, Jeffrey Ackerman, and Marianne Haaland
2023-2025
While cybersecurity self-help advice is readily available to consumers, most resources are focused on preventing unintended sharing of devices, passwords, accounts, and personal information. This advice is ill-suited to intimate relationship contexts where sharing is common. A lack of baseline knowledge about smartphone-sharing practices and the reasons behind them has hampered Australian efforts to strengthen consumer cybersecurity. This study created a new evidence base to understand everyday consumer smartphone sharing in intimate relationships to improve cybersecurity and technology design for all Australians. The study included a survey of 967 Australian adults and interviews with 10 diverse consumers to contextualise survey responses.
This study was made possible by funding from the Australian Communications Consumer Action Network (ACCAN).​
Publications
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Research report
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Fact sheet
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Infographic
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Discussion guide
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Agenda for future action
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