System and method of providing unique personal identifiers for use in the anonymous and secure exchange of data

Abstract

A universal anonymous data collection and exchange service is provided where individuals and entities initially register with the service utilizing “legally authentic” identity documentation to obtain a “universal ID” (UXID). The UXID consists of a sting of alphanumeric digits selected from a hash function that is performed on a string of personally identifying information. Once registered, the individual and entity UXIDs are used as a means by the service to engage in a pre-defined confidential data collection and exchange protocol between participating, registered UXID holders. The service is designed for use across many applications, individuals and entities, and may support one-time or recurring collection of data.

Description

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION [0001] This application claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Application No. 60 / 788,264, filed Mar. 31, 2006, and U.S. application Ser. No. 11 / 638,226 filed Dec. 31, 2006.TECHNICAL FIELD [0002] The present invention relates to a system and method of providing unique personal identifiers for use in the anonymous and secure exchange of data and, more particularly, to the implementation of a trusted third party service to generate unique universal IDs (UXIDs) and utilize the UXIDs as the key to a repository of secure data associated with the individual. BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION [0003] There is a widespread need for universal identifiers—database “keys”—to facilitate the collection, merger mid exchange of data across broad-based populations and time scales. Within the United States, the Social Security Number (SSN) has become the de facto standard identifier that is used to associate data with a selected individual. However, since the SSN is s...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0010] Once an individual has subscribed to the service and obtained a unique UXID, the individual may thereafter request to be associated with various entity subscribers to the service (where the individual is then issued a unique entity-associated UXID, or EA-UXID, for each association request) so that various types of personal data will be available (in an anonymous fashion) to the subscriber-entity. For example, a student may have a school-entity UXID that is used to associate his / her school records with him / her regardless of where they live throughout their school years. This same student may have a medical-entity UXID that is used in similar fashion to link the student's personal medical records with him / her. In accordance with the present invention, the utilization of different EA-UXIDs for each entity registration prevents the school-entity subscriber from having access to the student's medical records, and similarly prevents the medical-entity subscriber from having access to the student's school records.

Problems solved by technology

However, since the SSN is so readily tied to the individual, use of the SSN as a database key poses the risk of privacy abuses, including but not limited to identity theft.

Since the use of a universal identifier (such as the SSN) is often outside the knowledge or control of the person to whom the identifier is assigned, the potential for continued and ongoing misuse is significant.

Because individual privacy and confidentiality rights cannot be safeguarded with current approaches, governmental efforts to assign unique universal personal identifiers have met with significant legal opposition in the United States.

Collection of comprehensive educational data is essential for informed decision and policy making, but attempts to implement mandatory national data collection via personally identifiable IDs have met with significant legal challenges, in additional to financial and logistical ones.

Many types of national, state and other initiatives have been under scrutiny and subject to cancellation because they are unable to collect and analyze the data needed to determine program efficacy and cost-effectiveness.

Many social, financial, medical and other types of applications share these types of difficulties and thereby lack the means for collecting data which is needed for rigorous evaluation and scientific investigation.

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