Un recent study by the researchers of the American Stanford University reveals the fact that the accelerometer, the microphone and the loudspeakers of a mobile terminal can be identified based on a unique "fingerprint". Identification can be done for accelerometer by simply accessing a website, and the agencies that sell advertising can know if a mobile terminal has viewed their advertisement or not. The problem is that this unique fingerprint can make it easy to identify any user, if he has ever made a connection between his name and that terminal, and Facebook is a good example of this.
Code running on the website in the device's mobile browser measured the tiniest defects in the device's accelerometer — the sensor that detects movement — producing a unique set of numbers that advertisers could exploit to identify and track most smartphones. It turns out every accelerometer is predictably imperfect, and slight differences in the readings can be used to produce a fingerprint (see below for a further explanation). Marketers could use the ID the same way they use cookies — the small files that download from websites to desktops — to identify a particular user, monitor their online actions and target ads accordingly.
If you are wondering how these sensors can be identified, well it seems that every accelerometer has manufacturing defects that can be detected at the time of its use. Based on the information provided by these defects during use, a unique number code can be generated that is assigned to the sensor and the terminal, which can be recognized anytime and anywhere. The accelerometer can be used instead of cookies by advertising companies and government agencies to track user activity, and solving the problem is impossible.
