Password Challenges for Older People in China and the United Kingdom

Abstract

As vital services are moving increasingly online, it is important that everyone, including older people, can access them. Both high risk and many low risk online services require password authentication. Although there has been some research proposing easier to use and remember password systems, there is surprisingly little research on what problems older people have with real world authentication systems. This research conducted an online survey with 61 Chinese older people and 75 British older people about what problems they have in creating and managing passwords. There were differences between the samples of older people in the two countries in creating passwords, but few differences between the two samples in managing passwords. There were many problems in creating passwords, but not as many in terms of managing them. In particular, remembering passwords was not a particular concern, which may surprise many researchers who assume older people would have memory problems. The results have implications for where future research on password authentication for older users should be focussed.