I’ve read a ton of articles on cookies and profiling, even under GDPR. I’ve learned that websites could, even if you turn off cookies and don’t login, determine who you are. Even though login and registering to sites has been streamlined in the recent years, login remains a cumbersome task of the past. For privacy enthusiast our current internet is already a dystopian nightmare but what is keeping us from doing this? Just slam TOS to agree for the user while the service logs you in out of the view of user.
In: Technology
By combining information that you leave on the internet without taking the appropriate measures (like temporary containers and anti-fingerprinting), a website or analytics service used by a site could *guess* at your identity. Not know. Guess.
This is not sufficient for verified login both for simple (other people could be using the same browser profile) and more complex reasons. In order to be reasonably sure it is in fact the correct user, an active login process is required. The more sensitive the service is, the higher the verification requirements tend to be.
Could it work purely technically speaking? Yes, but probably not reliably enough that it’d be worth the trouble. Sorting out the mistakes could be costly.
I’d also argue that it’s not lawful to create user accounts based on compiled information, because it implies a lack of legitimate interest (which *is* implied by actually requiring a login) and consent. That’s a bit more nuanced and academic since no legitimate site would be likely to take that approach.
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