# How can I deactivate Fingerprinting? **URL:** \ **Category:** Privacy\ **Created:** [July 1, 2023, 12:39pm UTC](https://community.piwik.pro/t/how-can-i-deactivate-fingerprinting/2499 "2023-07-01T12:39:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 4
**Author:** ![Admin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3ec8ea/32.png) [@Admin](https://community.piwik.pro/u/Admin)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2023, 11:06am UTC](https://community.piwik.pro/t/how-can-i-deactivate-fingerprinting/2499/4 "2023-07-03T11:06:47Z")
The thing is it’s not exactly a fingerprint even though it works similarly when it’s active. The biggest difference is that it expires after 30 mins of inactivity and cannot be used to recognize returning visitors nor create user profiles. > 1. If I turn off Session ID, Piwik Pro will still stitch together Sessions (based on the Visitor ID cookie) Yes, assuming that you didn’t change the default settings for that in the Site&app settings. > 1. Turning off the Session ID actually turns off FIngerprinting, not Session recognition (which happens on the server)? Yes, session recognition is always done on the server. > [@loldenburg](#): > > Update: I just did deactivate the Session ID that for a site, but the \_pk.\_ses Cookie is still being generated - so Session ID and Session Cookie are not the same, got it. I can however verify that the User is not reidentified as the same user after deleting their cookies. Yes, `_pk_ses.*` cookie has nothing to do with the analytics session recognition that is done on the server side. The name is confusing, but it’s part of our Matomo’s legacy. This cookie is mainly used to update visits counter in the `_pk_id.*` cookie. This counter is used to generate some of the engagement reports, e.g. a table showing users grouped by no. of sessions or no. of sessions needed before the first order. --- _[View the full topic](https://community.piwik.pro/t/how-can-i-deactivate-fingerprinting/2499)._