A recent global survey reveals that not all mobile phone owners employ basic digital security, specifically by failing to use passwords on their devices.
The survey questioned respondents on both their password usage and whether they had established rules for phone use. Data from the survey identified similar patterns across different regions, economies, and genders.
In terms of gender, “Women mobile phone owners in Europe, Central Asia, the Middle East, North Africa, South Asia, and Sub-Saharan Africa are about 10 percentage points less likely than their male counterparts to protect their phones with passwords.”
Low- and middle-income economies exhibit low password adoption, with only 60% of mobile phone owners, across all genders, utilizing passwords or pins. The sub-Saharan region of Africa leads in this negative metric.
“Seventeen of the twenty economies with the lowest rates of password adoption are in Sub-Saharan Africa.”
Botswana, Kenya, Namibia, Senegal, and South Africa are notable exceptions. In these countries, approximately two-thirds or more of mobile phone owners use passwords.
Read: Kenya Facing Rise in Cyberthreats from Bank Fraud, Sextortion, and Ransomware
Danger to Mobile Money Accounts
Given sub-Saharan Africa’s high adoption of digital financial services, particularly mobile money, low password adoption poses a grave danger.
The World Bank’s Global Findex report shows that only about half of the region’s 300 million mobile money account holders secure their phones with passwords.
There are documented instances where someone other than the phone owner has control of a password, which creates a potential for exploitation. This is especially common when the password setup is done by someone else.
“In most economies, between 15 per cent and 30 per cent of phone owners with passwords cannot change them.”
However, it’s worth noting that most mobile money providers require users to input a Personal Identification Number (PIN) for sign-in or transactions, which helps mitigate this risk.
Further, there is gender parity among mobile money account owners. The Global Findex report found that women who own mobile money accounts are just as likely to secure their phones with a password as men with mobile money accounts.
