Some people, including me, have seen a dialog pop up on Ubuntu 15.10 asking for password authorization to “change own user data”. This is annoying and should not happen. The blunt force solution is suggested here. The problem with this solution is you won’t be able to do anything in the desktop GUI that actually does require root, because it kills process that prompts for the password. A real solution is needed.

Here’s a real solution that worked for me:

Go to the directory /etc/polkit-1/localauthority/50-local.d

Create a file called org.freedesktop.accounts.change-own-user-data.pkla, like this:

-rw-r–r– 1 root root 202 Dec  7 19:40 /etc/polkit-1/localauthority/50-local.d/org.freedesktop.accounts.change-own-user-data.pkla

File Contents:

[Do not prompt users with “Authentication is required to change your own user data” messages]
Identity=unix-user:*
Action=org.freedesktop.accounts.change-own-user-data
ResultAny=yes
ResultInactive=yes

That’s it – you’re done!