Confirmed: Browsing histories can be used to track users

2020-08-27 04:30

Browsing histories can be used to compile unique browsing profiles, which can be used to track users, Mozilla researchers have confirmed.

Sarah Bird, Ilana Segall and Martin Lopatka were spurred to reproduce the results set forth in a 2012 paper by Lukasz Olejnik, Claude Castelluccia, and Artur Janc, by using more refined data, and they've extend that work to detail the privacy risk posed by the aggregation of browsing histories.

The also confirmed that browsing history profiles are stable through time - a second prerequisite for these profiles being repeatedly tied to specific users/consumers and used for online tracking.

Privacy researcher Lukasz Olejnik, one of the authors of the 2012 paper, noted that the findings of this newest research are a welcome confirmation that web browsing histories are personal data that can reveal insight about the user or be used to track users.

"Web browsing histories are private data, and in certain contexts, they are personal data. Now the state of the art in research indicates this. Technology should follow. So too should the regulations and standards in the data processing. As well as enforcement," he concluded.

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