What Is a Digital Fingerprint, and How Is It Used?
According to some reports, data breaches were up 17% in 2021 compared to 2020. With hacks becoming more and more prevalent, people are trying to find ways to protect their data.
One way could be through a digital fingerprint. But what is a digital fingerprint, and how does it protect your personally identifiable information?
Keep reading to discover more about how this can provide internet privacy on your online devices.
What Is a Digital Fingerprint?
A digital fingerprint is a unique identifier that anyone that uses the internet has.
It is similar to your actual footprint, but it’s only online. The digital fingerprint contains data that identifies your browser and device as unique, and there isn’t anything like it out there.
The fingerprinting software will save the fingerprint data, but you can’t manually change it.
This means that internet users can be tracked and identified, even if you don’t accept cookies on websites. These identifiers are normally just used for browsing the internet, but if the information gets into the wrong hands, people can hack into your personal data and learn more about you.
How Is It Used?
Digital fingerprints are saved on the server, so users can’t stop them or block them unless they take drastic steps. And, sometimes these steps will impact your browsing experience.
When you go to a website, there is normally a script into the website that detects fingerprints and will then collect data from your device.
They’ll render the data, process it, hash it, and send it to the server for storage. But once they analyze the data, they can almost certainly guarantee exactly who you are and what device you visited the site from.
How to Hide Your Fingerprint
While hiding your fingerprint is entirely possible, there are steps that you can take to make it more difficult to track.
You can use some tools like a storage device erasure, but you can also just change your browsing habits.
Disable Cookies
To start with, you’ll want to disable all cookies and never accept them from a website. While the cookies make the site run better, you’re exchanging your information to help it run better.
Each browser will have an option to let you not use cookies. However, there are still some sites that can track you even without using cookies.
Use VPN
Using a VPN will also hide your IP address, and you can connect to the internet from around the world. However, there are still some sites that will track you even when you are using the VPN.
You should be careful about which VPN company you choose because they will also store your private data.
Learn More About Your Digital Fingerprint
These are only a few things to know about your digital fingerprint, but there are many other factors to consider.
We know that protecting your information online can be difficult at times with all the technology changes, but we can help keep you updated.
If you’re interested in more technological articles, explore our website to find more information!
