Analysis of Privacy Leakage Risks in the Context of Security Threats Associated with Digital Device Fingerprinting

Ivan Podsevalov, Alexei Podsevalov, Vladimir Korkhov

Abstract: In the modern field of data processing, operations are often conducted within distributed systems, where information of individual users is shared across multiple servers. In such a context, users aim to protect their privacy despite the inevitability of transmitting their device parameters to servers, which occurs almost automatically. One of the main risks is the transmission of device hash identifiers (so-called “digital fingerprints”) along with private statistical information, which can lead to the near-complete de-identification of users by external organisations. This risk is exacerbated by the potential use of additional statistical data that can be associated with a user.