Method and system for distributing electronic tickets with data integrity checking

• US 10,360,567 B2
• Filed: 05/23/2014
• Issued: 07/23/2019
• Est. Priority Date: 03/11/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Siemens Mobility, Inc. (Siemens AG)
• Original Assignee: Bytemark Incorporated
• Inventors: Bergdale, Micah, Grasser, Matthew, Rejko, Kevin, Ihm, Nicholas
• Primary Examiner(s): Brown, Luis A
• Application Number:
  US14/286,622
• Publication Number:
  US 20150088563A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,887 Days
• Field of Search: 705 1447, 705 1464
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/02 Reservations, e.g. for tickets, services or events
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/0457 the tickets being sent electronically
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/322 Aspects of commerce using mobile devices [M-devices]
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/326 Payment applications installed on the mobile devices
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/3274 using a pictured code, e.g. barcode or QR-code, being displayed on the M-device
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0185 Product, service or business identity fraud
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0241 Advertisements
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0248 Avoiding fraud
• CPC Class Codes: G07B 15/00 Arrangements or apparatus for collecting fares, tolls or entrance fees at one or more control points handling coins or valuable papers, e.g. banknotes, G07D; apparatus for vending or hiring articles or services activated by coins, credit cards, paper currency or the like G07F7/00, G07F17/00

Abstract

This invention discloses a novel system and method for distributing electronic ticketing to mobile devices such that the ticket stored on the device is checked for its integrity from tampering and the device periodically reports on ticket usage with a central server.

Claims

1. A mobile ticketing system for detecting fraudulent activity of tickets using data integrity, comprising:

a mobile device in communication with a server;

a server adapted to receive authentication data for a user account from the mobile device via a data network, and transmit data in the form of a ticket payload that contains code to the mobile device embodying a pass, wherein the pass includes a validation visual object that a ticket taker can rely on as verification of the pass without using a scanning device and wherein the validation visual object is not accessible until a time selected to be close to the point in time where the ticket has to be presented;

wherein the server is further configured to;

receive the pass with the data from the mobile device and determine if there is any mismatch in the received data of the pass by comparing the received data with the data transmitted;

block the user account in an event of the received data is mismatched with the transmitted data and detected as a fraudulent activity; and

determine the occurrence of the fraudulent activity associated with the user account in connection with the mobile ticketing system and store in a data record associated with the user account a data value indicating the fraudulent activity and in dependence on the data value indicating fraudulent activity, the code in the ticket payload makes the pass, including the validation visual object, no longer available on the device.

2. The system of claim 1, where the server system is further adapted to detect the fraudulent activity by detecting behavioral anomalies associated with the user'"'"'s account.

3. The system of claim 2, where the behavioral anomaly is the condition of one or more attempts to improperly use a pass originally associated with the user account.

4. The system of claim 1, where the device is further adapted to check the integrity of the pass data stored on the device.

5. The system of claim 4, where the integrity check is to determine whether there is a mismatch of a hash value.

6. The system of claim 4, where the integrity check is to determine whether a time stamp associated with stored pass data is inconsistent with other storage time stamp data.

7. The system of claim 1, where the server system is further adapted to:

receive a command to cause deactivation of a pass stored on the device,

receive from the device usage data associated with the deactivated pass,

update, using the received usage data, the pass usage data comprising a data record stored on the server system associated with the deactivated pass and in dependence on the updated usage data, and

transmit to a new device pass data for the same pass.

8. The system of claim 1, where the server system is further adapted to transmit to the device data representing purchased passes associated with the user account and the device is further adapted to combine the received data with pass data stored on the device in order to output on a graphical user interface operated by the device a list of all available passes.

9. The system of claim 1, where the device is further adapted to receive from the server system an expiration time value for an activated pass and, deactivate the pass when the device detects the condition that the time passed since activating the pass for use equals or exceeds the time value.

10. The system of claim 9, where for a plurality of passes stored on the device, each expiration time is unique.

11. The system of claim 1, where the device is further adapted to detect the condition that the device has not connected to the server system for a predetermined period of time and in dependence on such detection, erase the data associated with at least one pass stored on the device.

12. The system of claim 1, where the detection of fraudulent activity occurs as the result of receiving a data message from the device representing the detection of fraudulent activity on the device.

13. The system of claim 12, where the device is adapted to erase data stored on the device associated with the passes stored on the device when the condition of fraudulent activity has been detected.

14. The system of claim 1, where the device is adapted to erase data stored on the device associated with the passes stored on the device when the condition of fraudulent activity has been detected by the device, and to transmit a data message to the server system representing the detection of fraudulent activity on the device.

15. The system of claim 1, where the server system is adapted to receive a command to set a status bit associated with the user account to indicate fraudulent activity and the device is adapted to receive a data message representing the condition that the fraudulent activity bit is set, and disable the pass functionality on the device.

16. The system of claim 15, where the device is further adapted to disable the pass functionality by erasing the pass data stored on the device.