Device fingerprinting often leverage either proprietary or open-source methods for collecting data from digital transactions in order to uniquely identify a user.
This can sometimes lead to a surprising level of accuracy, depending on the technique used. A common fingerprinting mechanism, for example, leverages the specific collection and order of fonts on a user’s device to uniquely identify them.
Many companies may use some of these methods combined with their own. Because these are simply an approximation of the unique user versus s clear delineation of one, fingerprinting is a probabilistic method – and there is a chance that two users may collide and be confused for each other because they have the same fingerprint.
Because each vendor has their own secret fingerprinting recipe, the lifespan and scope of a fingerprint varies from vendor to vendor.
