The outside of your phone can reveal almost as much about you as the data stored inside it. Using swabs taken from handsets, researchers from the University of California have been able to construct
surprisingly accurate profiles of their owners: among other things, they can determine their gender, what foods they eat, what hygiene products they use and which medications they take. People leave
chemical and molecular traces whenever they touch an object; and on objects they touch frequently – phones, keys, wallets – these build up over time. Using mass spectronomy, the researchers analysed the phones of 39 volunteers, and constructed a personalised lifestyle “readout” for each of
them. Some of the products detected – including sunscreen and mosquito repellent – had been lingering on the phones for months. The team, who published their findings in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, believe their work could be used by police when
constructing profiles of crime suspects, among other applications.
