Around half of respondents said they share personal devices, mostly with family members. This has significant implications for mobile device security and digital education, as most privacy advice focuses on individual users rather than groups that use shared devices. Our research shows that we need to pay much more attention to sharers and shared device protection.

Younger millennials (aged 25-34) share their devices the most. This is likely because they have the most contact with different groups. That is, younger millennials may share devices (1) with their partners, (2) parents, and (3) with their (potentially young) children.

Around two-thirds of respondents claimed they track their children’s online activity and 20-25% monitor their partners. VPN users are more likely to track their children and partners, suggesting that greater security awareness makes people more likely to take responsibility for the security of those closest to them.

The pandemic has blurred the lines between work and leisure — users have been staying logged onto their work VPNs for longer each day during the quarantine. And it’s just one aspect of work intruding on life. Around a third of respondents (35% in the UK and 30% in the US) keep work files on personal devices, which can compromise data and network security.

Whether it is making sure your family stays private online, protecting your work data, or upgrading your laptop security — we need to work on it together. Better privacy tools and skills are necessary for everyone. Sharing is part of online life, so we must learn to share the responsibility to keep ourselves and our friends and family safer online.