Evolution of HTTPS Usage by Portuguese Municipalities

Abstract

This paper presents a study on the evolution of the use of HTTPS by the official websites of all (308) Portuguese municipalities. One year ago, we found a bad situation regarding HTTPS usage: only a small percentage of websites adopted HTTPS correctly. The results were communicated to the relevant entities so actions could be taken. After one year, we performed a new assessment to check for evolution. This paper presents the results of this second assessment. We found a significantly better situation, although still with plenty of room for improvement: 31 municipal websites were classified as Good (20 more), while 42 less were classified as Bad (100 in total). We concluded that two determinants that were identified as contributing to explain the results of the first study - municipal taxes and total population - do not contribute to explain the improvements observed in this assessment. We believe that we contributed to those improvements by raising awareness to the high number of municipalities not using or badly using HTTPS.