A Survey of Techniques for the Identification of Mobile Phones Using the Physical Fingerprints of the Built-In Components

In recent years, several research studies have investigated the identification of electronic devices through their physical components and properties, both from a theoretical point of view and through extensive experimental studies. Results have shown that, in many cases, a very high identification accuracy can be obtained by exploiting imperfections and small differences in the electronic components, which are called fingerprints in this context. Part of these studies have focused on a specific category of electronic device, the mobile phone or smartphone, which is usually equipped with components, such as radio frequency frontends, cameras, micro-electro-mechanical systems, microphones, and speakers that are likely to reveal fingerprints in their digital outputs and then allow the identification of the component and of the mobile phone itself. Keeping the focus on mobile phones, this paper provides a survey of the different techniques for mobile phone identification on the basis of their built-in components. This paper describes the methodology, the classification algorithms, and the types of features that are typically used in literature. Outstanding challenges and research issues are also identified and described, together with an overview of the potential applications of mobile phone fingerprinting. In addition, this paper analyzes the potential privacy risks associated to the tracking of the mobile phone on the basis of its fingerprints and the related mitigation techniques. Finally, it summarizes the main issues and identifies research opportunities and potential future trends for mobile phone fingerprinting.