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What happens to a user who has been anonymously signed into an app using firebase anonymous authentication when he/she factory resets his/her device. Is all the information the app had on him get lost or what does firebase use to maintain user data

E_K
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1 Answers1

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An anonymous user in Firebase Authentication is not much more then their UID.

When you uninstall an app or wipe the device, that UID is wiped from the device. When the user signs in with anonymous authentication next time, they will get a new UID. There will be no connection between their previous UID and the new UID. This is the nature of anonymous authentication.

The information on the original UID will still exist on the Firebase servers, but there's no built-in way to connect the former UID and the next UID together.

Frank van Puffelen
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  • Thanks for the clarification. So I guess the only way to keep track is, for example, storing the device information eg its IMEI into my Firebase Database and use it to track my users??My app requires to collect statistics and people feel more at ease answering questions if they know no one will associate the answers to them@Frank – E_K Feb 04 '17 at 22:11