[android-developers] What is Development device ID?

In ICS's Developer Options, there's a preference "Development device
ID" with a 13 character string (XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-X screenshot:
http://cdn.droid-life.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Screenshot_2011-12-05-12-06-48-365x650.png).
I searched high and low to find out what it might before but couldn't
find anything.

So I looked at the source of the Settings app to see where it was
coming from (https://github.com/android/
platform_packages_apps_settings/blob/master/src/com/android/settings/
DevelopmentSettings.java#L143):

final Preference verifierDeviceIdentifier =
findPreference(VERIFIER_DEVICE_IDENTIFIER);
final PackageManager pm = getActivity().getPackageManager();
final VerifierDeviceIdentity verifierIndentity =
pm.getVerifierDeviceIdentity();
if (verifierIndentity != null) {

verifierDeviceIdentifier.setSummary(verifierIndentity.toString());
}

And looking at the online docs,
PackageManager#getVerifierDeviceIdentity is not documented. However,
viewing the source shows (https://github.com/android/
platform_frameworks_base/blob/master/core/java/android/content/pm/
PackageManager.java#L2658):

/**
* Returns the device identity that verifiers can use to associate
their
* scheme to a particular device. This should not be used by
anything other
* than a package verifier.
*
* @return identity that uniquely identifies current device
* @hide
*/
public abstract VerifierDeviceIdentity
getVerifierDeviceIdentity();

It states that it is a device identifier, yet says we shouldn't use it
to identify devices... Does anyone know if this is in someway similar
to ANDROID_ID? If not, does anyone know what this is for?

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