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Netflix is ending your freedom to use another person’s account in India to stream its content. The platform introduced password sharing in various countries, and now it is coming for the Indian users from this week onwards. The video streaming platform has seen an increase in its user base since the new policy was introduced in other countries, and now it is planning for a similar growth in the Indian market as well. But the company’s password sharing policy in India is slightly different from its global strategy.

For Netflix users in India, there is no option to pay an additional fee to use the same account by multiple people. You have to be in the same household to use the same Netflix account. The company has mentioned this word quite a few times in its blog post here, but what does a household mean, who can access your Netflix account without paying for the service and what changes do you need to make to use Netflix in India. Here are all the details you need to know.

Netflix Password Sharing In India Ends: How Does It Affect You

Netflix has stated that the new policy for account usage comes into effect from July 20 but the rollout is expected to be gradual, so it is possible that you will get a mail from the company in the next few days. Netflix plans in India start from as low as Rs 149 per month which is a mobile-only plan and to watch Netflix on more devices you can take the basic plan that costs Rs 199 per month.

Like we said, Indian Netflix users don’t need to pay an additional charge to let others use their account. Netflix wants all these free users to get their own subscription.

For instance, if you have a friend using your Netflix account, they will have to get a new account from the platform to use its service. However, now comes the biggest confusion regarding this change. Netflix has used the term household quite a few times in its post. So we decided to check with the platform what they mean by household and who is part of the household.

As it turns out, the definition of household for Netflix is, as expected, people in the same network (Wi-Fi network, IP address and more.

So if you have parents using the account living in the same house, they can use the account. In fact, even if they are on a different Wi-Fi network in the same house, they can still use the service. How is that possible? Netflix seems to be tracking the device ID via its MAC address, which is unique to each device and comes from the manufacturer.

The platform says it has built a mechanism to check for these IDs which will give them details about who is using the Netflix account, and where they are situated. But then, Netflix also mentions that you can be part of the same household but are travelling.

In such cases, the company will be tracking the device and the profile activity. Now, when you hear the word tracking, the first thing you worry about is privacy, but it seems Netflix feels confident about its process which could invariably help them garner more users and make them pay to use its service.