The study warns of privacy measures to hide the identity of phone users

According to a study published in the journal Nature Communications, people are able to determine their identities through certain details derived from how they communicate through an application. ⁇.

In a statement to the AFP, the university researcherImperial CollegeLondon-based researcher Yves-Alexandre de Montgui, co-author of the study, said it was “time to refresh the concept.” Anonymous status“.

The research team obtained anonymous data from more than 40,000 mobile phone users, most of which were derived information Messaging applications And other “contact” data.

The team then “hits” the data, looking for patterns of those interactions, a technique that can be used by malicious actors.

With content-limited data only for those in direct contact with the target individual, the team was able to identify the latter in 15 percent of cases.

By adding additional contacts with people in direct contact, the group was able to identify 52 percent of the population.

The study, conducted by researchers from the United Kingdom, Switzerland and Italy, said it provides evidence that many data are “long-term identifiable”.

The authors of the study continued, “These results confirm that current practices may not meet the standard Anonymous status Imposed (by European regulatory authorities) ”especially on the ability to link data with the user’s identity.

De Monkey stressed that the study was not intended to criticize a particular company or legal entity.

He pointed out that the traditional concept of anonymity was “no longer useful”, which does not mean abandoning the nameless.

He thought the solution might be to not allow applications to access large amounts of data.