- Google has turned its policy on ‘fingerprints’
- ‘Fingerprint’ is a technique used to collect personal user data
- Users have very little to say about what information is given to advertisers
Do you sometimes want online advertisement to have access to more Of your private information without your consent or knowledge? You might just be lucky.
From February 16 2025, Google allows ‘fingerprints’, which is a stealthy technique that tracks things like your IP addresses, screen resolution, operating systems and even battery percentage – until it has a creepy accurate profile of you.
This practice will be particularly disturbing to the confidentiality conscious among us, as it is almost impossible for users to check what information is collected and when. You can turn off all cookies, use all the private browsers and use the best VPN money can buy, but you can still be traced with this technique.
Why the heart change?
In his response, Britain’s Information Commissioner’s office declared that it considers a fingerprint to be, ‘not a fair means of tracking users online because it is likely to reduce people’s choices and control over how their information is collected’.
The move is a rather sharp 180-degree reversal with regard to politics, considering that Google in 2019 condemned the practice of fingerprints and said;
“Unlike cookies, users cannot clear their fingerprints and therefore cannot control how their information is collected. We believe this undermines user choice and is wrong. “
But practice will, ‘help companies, big and small, meet the opportunities in the evolving digital landscape,’ says Google’s statement latest, and it claims to be ‘to meet the user’s expectations of privacy’ – but you can decide for yourself if your expectations is met with this policy.
So what can you do about it? Unfortunately not much. ICO admits, ‘even privacy conscious users will have it difficult to stop’ as practice is more difficult for browsers to block, and it depends on signals that you can’t easily dry – so pressing ‘clearing all site data’ won’t stop The advertiser in using the same fingerprint techniques to just identify you again.
That said, some browsers, such as Firefox and the brave browser, have fingerprint protection features that can creep things like time zone, language, fonts and languages in websites for websites. There are also Google Chrome extensions like canvas blocks that can work in a similar way.
If you want more information, we have written a full guide to what fingerprints are and how to protect yourself.
