Netflix Password Sharing Crackdown Means You Must ‘Check In’ At Home Once A Month

New details are emerging about how Netflix plans to enforce its upcoming global crackdown on password sharing, which right now is live in just a few countries including Chile, Costa Rica and Peru.

One constant question through all this is how Netflix is going to prove who is account sharing and who is just traveling or staying in a second household. The methodology for checking appears to be…somewhat cumbersome.

On the FAQ pages for the regions where the password sharing crackdown is already live, Netflix explains you have to have a device “check in” at least once a month on the home network:

“To ensure that your devices are associated with your primary location, connect to the Wi-Fi at your primary location, open the Netflix app or website, and watch something at least once every 31 days,” the company says on its support page.”

So, what this means in practice is that if you’re say, a college student using your parents’ Netflix plan, you would have travel home once a month, bring your laptop or tablet, “check in” on the Wifi and watch something on Netflix. If instead you’re using Netflix on a TV you can’t bring with you well, you’re out of luck, since that’s exactly what Netflix is trying to kill off.

As for traveling, the FAQ says that a temporary code can be given out for travel that will allow seven consecutive days of account access without being blocked. But obviously we are in a situation that has many complications, like longer trips, temporary moves, split households, etc. The system seems ripe to have accounts blocked that maybe shouldn’t be, and Netflix says if this happens, you will need to contact Netflix directly to get your device unblocked. I’m sure that’s an easy process…

Netflix claims 100 million people are password sharing on Netflix, and they want to convert at least some portion of those into active users with their own accounts or add-ons to existing ones. But with how clunky this sounds, it feels like you’re just going to see a whole lot of cancellations or switches to other services that do not have these kinds of systems in place. And a lot of annoyed customers who get frustrated with Netflix if X or Y device is blocked in X or Y location and they have to call Netflix tech support to sort it out. I wonder what they’re going to lose compared to what they think they’re going to gain.

But if this works? You may see all streaming services start to adopt this, as while they may not be saying it publicly like Netflix, none of them want people password sharing fundamentally. We’ll see what happens when this expands.

Update (2/2): Apparently due to the widespread backlash over the 31 day check-in news, Netflix has now deleted that section from its FAQ pages on which it originally appeared.

That does not mean the policy no longer exists. When pressed for comment, Netflix only told Streamable, the original poster of the story, “For a brief time yesterday, a help center article containing information that is only applicable to Chile, Costa Rica, and Peru, went live in other countries.” We have since updated it.” and “We don’t have any updates to share beyond the fact that we expect to roll this out more broadly in Q1.”

Again, there is nothing to indicate that Netflix is not actually going to broadly implement the policies that were listed, which include this 31 day check-in or the idea that you can get a 7 day “travel voucher” for Netflix if you’re on the road. The company has reiterated time and time again it will do this crackdown, and even now, they’re still reiterating that in these statements. The question is just how.

The news about the crackdown went viral yesterday, and people conjured up all sorts of extremely valid reasons why in practice it would be a nightmare, whether it’s snowbirds who live in different parts of the country or people who travel for lengthier periods of time. The ultimate conclusion most drew was that this sounded like more trouble than it was worth, and they’d probably just cancel their subscription. Many of these people are not even password sharers, just customers who think their own personal Netflix experience will be hurt by the crackdown’s implementation.

I don’t think Netflix is correctly predicting how rolling this out is going to go on a wide scale, but I suppose we’ll see if they make any changes before broader implementation.

Follow me on Twitter, YouTube, Facebook and Instagram. Subscribe to my free weekly content round-up newsletter, God Rolls.

Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.