Germs On Phones Could Give Away Secretes, Says New Study

By analysing chemicals, molecules and germs on people’s smartphones, researchers say they were able to get a good idea of users’ habits and lifestyles. This included aspects such as diet, medications, hygiene and beauty products, general health, and places visited.

News of this latest study came against the background of another research, which suggests that the light from smartphones, especially before bedtime, may affect how long and well you sleep.

Pieter Dorrestein, senior author of the first study at the University of California, was quoted Tuesday, in a report by HealthDay, as pointing out that the approach could prove useful in a number of areas, including medical clinical trials, criminal profiling, airport screening, making sure patients are taking medications, and environmental exposure studies. The study was published November 14 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

“You can imagine a scenario where a crime scene investigator comes across a personal object — like a phone, pen or key — without fingerprints or DNA, or with prints or DNA not found in the database. They would have nothing to go on to determine who that belongs to,” said Dorrestein. He’s a professor at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine and School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences.

“So we thought — what if we take advantage of left-behind skin chemistry to tell us what kind of lifestyle this person has?” Dorrestein said in a university news release. Dorrestein and colleagues took swabs from four areas on the cellphones of 39 healthy adults.

“By analysing the molecules they’ve left behind on their phones, we could tell if a person is likely female, uses high-end cosmetics, dyes her hair, drinks coffee, prefers beer over wine, likes spicy food, is being treated for depression, wears sunscreen and bug spray — and therefore likely spends a lot of time outdoors — all kinds of things,” said study first author Amina Bouslimani. She’s an assistant project scientist in Dorrestein’s lab.