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iOS devices

Fingerprint's device intelligence platform for iOS devices.

Fingerprint's device intelligence platform is also available for iOS devices. Our device intelligence platform for iOS helps you to accurately identify the devices that interact with your mobile app and provides high-quality smart signals that will help you identify risky transactions before they happen.

To make integrations with mobile apps easier, we offer SDKs for apps built natively as well as for apps built using multi-platform frameworks (e.g. React Native).

A Fingerprint account is required to be able to use the Fingerprint Identification SDK in your mobile apps. If you do not have an account yet, please sign up for one.

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Download our demo app from App Store to see Fingerprint in action!

Device Identifier

When Fingerprint Identification SDK is integrated into your mobile app, for every device that interacts with your app, you will be able to receive a unique device identifier (i.e. visitorId). The visitor ID is derived solely from Apple's identifierForVendor (IDFV) property. The SDK does not use any fingerprinting techniques to identify a device.

However, despite the visitor ID being derived from IDFV, there are a few important differences between them:

  • The visitor ID will remain the same even when the app is removed and re-installed whereas the IDFV will not.
  • In addition to being scoped by the vendor, the visitor ID is also scoped by the Fingerprint Workspace. It means the only time the visitor ID remains the same between two apps is when the apps are from the same vendor and when they belong to the same Fingerprint workspace.
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Did you know?

The device identifier generated by the iOS SDK (embedded within your mobile app) will be different from the visitor ID generated by the Javascript agent (embedded within your website).

The identification accuracy, when compared with browsers, is better for iOS devices because the IDFV property has higher longevity than the signals used for identifying browsers.

For your reference, we have listed various scenarios where a visitor ID will remain the same before and after and where a new visitor ID will be created.

ScenarioWill I receive the same visitor ID before and after?
The app or device is restartedYes. You will receive the same visitor ID even after the app or device is restarted.
The app is uninstalled and re-installed againYes. You will receive the same visitor ID even after the app is removed and installed again
The provisioning profile and/or the signing certificate of the app are changed.Yes. You will receive the same visitor ID as long as the AppID remains the same before and after the change.
The device is jailbrokenYes. You will receive the same visitor ID as before even after the device is jailbroken.
Lockdown mode is enabled on the deviceYes. You will receive the same visitor ID as before even after lockdown mode is enabled on the device.
Reset device settings to their default valuesYes. You will receive the same visitor ID as before even after one or more of the device settings are reset to their default.
The device is factory reset(i.e. all content and settings are erased).No. After the device is factory reset, a new visitor ID will be generated.

iOS Smart Signals

Smart Signals are actionable device intelligence signals that help you to make informed decisions about the device and thus prevent fraud. These signals could be used as input to your machine learning models behind your fraud detection or risk mitigation engines. For example, when you know that a request is originating from a jailbroken device, you will be able to take additional precautionary security steps (e.g. multi-factor authentication).

When your mobile app requests a visitor ID, the SDK, along with the IDFV, will collect several other attributes from the device. The Smart Signals are deduced by combining these attributes with additional algorithms.

For iOS, the following smart signals are available:

These smart signals are available as part of our Pro Plus and Enterprise plans. If you are interested in one or more of these signals, please contact our support team to enable them. Signing up for an Enterprise plan does not automatically enable these signals.

Fingerprint Identification SDK for iOS

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Current Version: 2.8.2

For release notes and older versions, please visit the Changelog for iOS SDK page.

Supported Versions

The minimum version that the iOS SDK for Fingerprint Identification supports is iOS 13, tvOS 15. Per Apple and Statista, this will allow your app to be compatible with a wide variety of active iOS devices.

As of May 2023, our SDK will allow your app to be compatible with more than 94% of the devices in the world.

Getting Started Guides

Our Getting Started guides are aimed at helping you to integrate our SDK with your apps easily.

Privacy Manifest File Requirements for App Store

During WWDC 2023, Apple introduced a new requirement where app and SDK developers must create privacy manifest files to declare the data that their app/SDK collects and the reasons for collecting this data. Accordingly, starting from v2.3.2, the Fingerprint Identification SDK for iOS will include a privacy manifest file. To learn more, please see Understanding privacy manifest files.

FingerprintJS-iOS: Open-source identification library for iOS

We also provide a lightweight, open-source library called fingerprintjs-ios which is available to use for free by everyone. Our commercial SDK, Fingerprint Identification for iOS, is based on our well-maintained, free, open-source library.

For your better understanding, here is a complete set of differences between our open-source library (fingerprintjs-ios) and our commercial SDK (fingerprint-ios-pro).

FingerprintJS-iOS
(fingerprintjs-ios)

Fingerprint Identification for iOS
(fingerprint-ios-pro)

Core Features
Attributes collected from the device Basic
(e.g. OS, Model) 		Advanced. Lot more attributes, in addition to those collected by the open-source library.
ID Type A visitor ID that is solely derived from Apple's identifierForVendor property. A visitor ID that is solely derived from Apple's identifierForVendor property.
ID Origin The visitor ID is generated only from within the device. External servers are not involved. The visitor ID is generated from within the device and also processed in our servers.
Is visitor ID the same across multiple apps on a single device? No. Unless the apps are from the same vendor. No. Unless the apps are from the same vendor and belong to the same Fingerprint workspace.
ID Collisions Common Very rare

Support for multi-platform frameworks

Flutter - ✓
React Native - ✓

Advanced Features
Server API and Webhooks
(Build flexible workflows)
 - ✓
Mobile Smart Signals
(VPN Detection, Factory Reset, Geolocation Spoofing, etc)
 - ✓
Geolocation
(Based on IP address)
 - ✓

Operations
Data security Depends on your infrastructure Encrypted at rest
Storage Depends on your infrastructure Unlimited up to 1 year
Regions Depends on your infrastructure Global, EU and Asia data centers
Compliance Depends on your infrastructure Compliant*** with GDPR, CCPA, SOC 2 Type II, and ISO 27001
SLA SLA is not provided 99.9% Uptime
General Support GitHub Issues/Questions. Response times varies. Dedicated support team that responds to chat, email, and calls within 1 business day
Support for submitting an app to App Store Not available. Dedicated support will be provided to the extent resulting from using the Fingerprint Identification SDK.

How to get started?
Get it on GitHub Sign up for a free 14-day trial
**In comparison to fingerprints, VisitorIDs are more accurate and stable identifiers because they are deduplicated, are processed further on the server, and utilize fuzzy matching. On the other hand, fingerprint hashes become unstable across time intervals greater than 2 weeks because they rely on an exact match of all browser attributes.
***The company, Fingerprint, in its role as data processor is compliant with GDPR, CCPA and SOC 2 Type II. It is also ISO 27001 certified. As a data controller, it is still your responsibility to be compliant with GDPR and CCPA and use the identification result for legitimate purposes.

Updated about 2 months ago