Towards Understanding the Link Between Age and Smartphone Authentication

While previous work on smartphone (un)locking has revealed real world usage patterns, several aspects still need to be explored. In this paper, we fill one of these knowledge gaps: the interplay between age and smartphone authentication behavior. To do this, we performed a two-month long field study (N = 134). Our results indicate that there are indeed significant differences across age. For instance, younger participants were more likely to use biometric unlocking mechanisms and older participants relied more on auto locks.