The Netflix police have arrived, and the crackdown is serious. Individuals will soon no longer be able to share their Netflix account information with friends and family members outside of their households. With Netflix in the midst of a trial run, this change in policy is currently only affecting Netflix users in Chile, Costa Rica, and Peru. The new guidelines for stopping password sharing, however, were mistakenly displayed on Netflix’s help center pages all over the world, including the United States, creating a stir among its users. It has since been taken down as Netflix continues to monitor the trial run, and if the policy change is deemed a success for Netflix, global implementation could follow.

The guidelines themselves could cause annoyance for Netflix users. Here is how Netflix plans to eradicate password sharing.

To detect that a Netflix viewer is the authentic owner of an established account, they will have to connect to the Wi-Fi at their primary location. When an individual is not connected to the primary established Wi-Fi, Netflix will grow suspicious of the account’s activity, and after about a month, the individual will be locked out of Netflix.       

There is, however, a way to not be limited by the Wi-Fi connection. While connected to the primary Wi-Fi, a customer can create a trusted device to watch Netflix. There has to be activity every 31 days for the device to remain a trusted device. Customers who tend to watch Netflix on their televisions, computers, and phones, are deeply annoyed with the system. Watching Netflix has turned into a juggling act where customers must make sure they are using all their devices every month to ensure they were getting their money’s worth. If a customer can maintain a trusted device, they can travel and continue to use their device without the connection to their primary Wi-Fi. Try to avoid long trips, as Netflix warns, “your device may be blocked from watching Netflix.” Not to worry, though, as Netflix users can simply request a temporary access code to unblock their account.

It is safe to say the public is hoping the trial run fails, but Netflix is determined to tighten the security of Netflix accounts around the world.