Inventory of all your accounts
If your device(s) may be shared at some time or another, you should take steps to control what others can access and do with them. Creating individual accounts does this. These specify what others may do without compromising your personal data.
Even if you do not share your devices it is good practice to keep your login identities and passwords to online services secret to avoid others – unknown and unknowable – from impersonating you and conducting financial transactions, abusing your social networks, writing blogs, etc.
Why is this an issue?
It is likely that, like the majority of people these days, your devices are used for accessing subscription material, bank accounts, assorted bookings and reservations, electronic mail, blogs, social networks and more.
If you are a regular use of Web-based services it is likely that you will be required to have a login identity and, typically, a password. As these may be numerous, it creates a dilemma: make it easy for yourself by using the same login identity and password for all of these accounts or, like physical keys to open locks, have a different one for every account.
The latter is a more secure option but it requires you to have an excellent memory or write them down. If you write them down, this inventory must be kept away from anyone who may misuse it or abuse it.
What you should do about it
The first step consists of identifying and listing all the login identities and passwords you have and what they are used for. While the number of login identities need not be large – many online services use your electronic mail address as your login identity. Your choice is whether to use your “real” name or a made-up identity (e.g. Retired.Auditor@….). However, passwords should be different for each service.
Having established the list, it should be protected by, for example, storing it in encrypted form, password protected and/or in a data vault.
Ensure you have also let your log-on credentials with a trusted/loved person. You never know what uncertainties life will confront you with and they may need to access your system in the event of an emergency.