In a world of increasingly sophisticated cyber threats, the best way to fight fraud is to identify it before it happens. That means having the ability to detect a variety of behaviors like multi-accounting, account takeovers, payment fraud and bonus abuse.
Device Fingerprinting API explained is a powerful tool for combatting these types of attacks and helping to prevent fraud at the source. It’s also essential to ensuring online safety, and balancing robust security with user privacy. But what exactly is it? And how does it work?
What is a Device Fingerprinting API?
A device fingerprinting system creates a unique ID for each device that interacts with your website. It then uses this ID to track the device and build a risk profile that helps you understand quality during logins, checkouts, account creations and other privileged actions. To use device fingerprinting you must include a JavaScript snippet in your website that enables the fingerprinting function.
This snippet is added via the API and allows you to retrieve the current device fingerprint, as well as all of its associated attributes, for each transaction that takes place on your site. This data can then be used to make an informed decision about the customer’s eligibility for a specific service or to identify any unusual behavior that may indicate fraud.
It is important to note that the fingerprints (or IDs) retrieved by this method are considered personal data under GDPR. This means that most companies using this type of tracking technology will need to ask for consent before they can process them.