Third party monitoring of activity within a monitoring platform

• US 10,601,982 B2
• Filed: 02/22/2019
• Issued: 03/24/2020
• Est. Priority Date: 05/18/2017
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Global Tel-Link Corporation
• Original Assignee: Global Tel-Link Corporation
• Inventors: Hodge, Stephen Lee
• Primary Examiner(s): Tieu, Binh Kien
• Application Number:
  US16/282,886
• Publication Number:
  US 20190191029A1
• Time in Patent Office: 396 Days
• Field of Search: 379 103, 379 3201, 379 48, 379 49, 379 8811, 379 8812, 379 8817, 379 8822, 379 9301, 379 9307, 379133, 37926501, 37926505, 37926506
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/535 Tracking the activity of the user network monitoring arrangements H04L43/00; recording of computer activity G06F11/34
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/2281 Call monitoring, e.g. for law enforcement purposes; Call tracing; Detection or prevention of malicious calls
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 3/38 Graded-service arrangements, i.e. some subscribers prevented from establishing certain connections queuing arrangements H04Q3/64

Abstract

The present disclosure describes a monitoring environment that monitors an activity for activity that may be indicative of being prohibited by the local, the state, and/or the national governing authorities, namely suspicious activity, or activity that is prohibited by the local, the state, and/or the national governing authorities, namely prohibited activity. The monitoring environment verifies the activity is actually being monitored within the monitoring environment. The verification can require one or more monitoring persons monitoring the activity to perform one or more tasks to verify their attentiveness in monitoring the activity. The one or more tasks can be as simple as activating a checkbox or providing a code or an electronic signature to provide some examples, although more complicated tasks, such as a biometric verification such as a retinal, a facial, and/or a voice verification to provide some examples, are possible as will be recognized by those skilled in the relevant art(s) without departing from the spirit and scope of the present disclosure.

Claims

1. A monitoring environment for monitoring a plurality of communications, the monitoring environment comprising:

a controlled environment configured to provide the plurality of communications between a plurality of insider persons within the controlled environment and a plurality of outsider persons within a plurality of uncontrolled environments remote from the controlled environment; and

a monitoring platform configured to;

monitor a percentage of the plurality of communications as prescribed by local, state, or national governing authorities, the percentage of the plurality of communications being less than all the plurality of communications provided by the controlled environment,

schedule a monitoring person from among a plurality of monitoring persons to monitor a communication from among the percentage of the plurality of communications, and

instruct the monitoring person to perform a task to verify the monitoring person is monitoring the communication.

2. The monitoring environment of claim 1, wherein the controlled environment comprises an institutional environment, a military environment, a hospital environment, an educational environment, a business environment, or a governmental environment.

3. The monitoring environment of claim 1, wherein the percentage of the plurality of communications is prescribed by a regulation or a contract between the monitoring platform and the local, the state, or the national governing authorities.

4. The monitoring environment of claim 3, wherein the monitoring platform is further configured to measure the percentage of the plurality of communications being monitored by the plurality of monitoring persons to ensure the monitoring platform is performing in accordance with the regulation or the contract.

5. The monitoring environment of claim 1, wherein the monitoring platform is further configured to receive a warning alert from the monitoring person when the monitoring person indicates suspicious activity or prohibited activity is present in the communication.

6. The monitoring environment of claim 5, wherein the monitoring platform is further configured to notify the local, the state, or the national governing authorities of the suspicious activity or the prohibited activity corresponding to the warning alert.

7. The monitoring environment of claim 5, wherein the warning alert comprises:

an annotation, a flag, a bookmark, an audible alert, and/or a video alert indicating presence of the suspicious activity or the prohibited activity in the communication.

8. The monitoring environment of claim 1, wherein the task comprises:

entry of a response to a question by the monitoring person;

entry of a code by the monitoring person;

or

entry of a biometric verification by the monitoring person.

9. A monitoring platform for monitoring a plurality of communications between a plurality of insider persons within a controlled environment and a plurality of outsider persons within a plurality of uncontrolled environments remote from the controlled environment, the monitoring platform comprising:

a memory configured to store instructions for monitoring a percentage of the plurality of communications as prescribed by local, state, or national governing authorities, the percentage of the plurality of communications being less than all the plurality of communications provided by the controlled environment; and

a processor, configured to execute the instructions, the instructions, when executed by the processor, configuring the processor to;

schedule a monitoring station from among a plurality of monitoring stations to monitor a communication from among the percentage of the plurality of communications, and

cause the monitoring station to instruct a monitoring person from a plurality of monitoring persons associated with the monitoring station to perform a task to verify the monitoring person is monitoring the communication.

10. The monitoring platform of claim 9, wherein the controlled environment comprises an institutional environment, a military environment, a hospital environment, an educational environment, a business environment, or a governmental environment.

11. The monitoring platform of claim 9, wherein the percentage of the plurality of communications is prescribed by a regulation or a contract between the monitoring platform and the local, the state, or the national governing authorities.

12. The monitoring platform of claim 11, wherein the instructions, when executed by the processor, further configure the processor to measure the percentage of the plurality of communications being monitored by the plurality of monitoring persons to ensure the monitoring platform is performing in accordance with the regulation or the contract.

13. The monitoring platform of claim 9, wherein the instructions, when executed by the processor, further configure the processor to receive a warning alert from the monitoring station when the monitoring person indicates suspicious activity or prohibited activity is present in the communication.

14. The monitoring platform of claim 13, wherein the instructions, when executed by the processor, further configure the processor to notify the local, the state, or the national governing authorities of the suspicious activity or the prohibited activity corresponding to the warning alert.

15. The monitoring platform of claim 13, wherein the warning alert comprises:

an annotation, a flag, a bookmark, an audible alert, and/or a video alert indicating presence of the suspicious activity or the prohibited activity in the communication.

16. The monitoring platform of claim 9, wherein the task comprises:

entry of a response to a question by the monitoring person at the monitoring station;

entry of a code by the monitoring person at the monitoring station;

or

entry of a biometric verification by the monitoring person at the monitoring station.

17. A method for monitoring a plurality of communications, the method comprising:

scheduling a monitoring person from among a plurality of monitoring persons to monitor a communication from among a percentage of the plurality of communications between a plurality of insider persons within a controlled environment and a plurality of outsider persons within a plurality of uncontrolled environments remote from the controlled environment,

wherein the percentage of the plurality of communications is prescribed by local, state, or national governing authorities and is less than all the plurality of communications provided by the controlled environment; and

instructing the monitoring person to perform a task to verify the monitoring person is monitoring the communication.

18. The method of claim 17, wherein the percentage of the plurality of communications is prescribed by a regulation or a contract between a monitoring platform and the local, the state, or the national governing authorities.

19. The method of claim 18, further comprising:

measuring the percentage of the plurality of communications being monitored by the plurality of monitoring persons to ensure performance in accordance with the regulation or the contract.

20. The method of claim 17, further comprising:

receiving a warning alert from the monitoring person when the monitoring person indicates suspicious activity or prohibited activity is present in the communication.

21. The method of claim 20, further comprising:

notifying the local, the state, or the national governing authorities of the suspicious activity or the prohibited activity corresponding to the warning alert.

22. The method of claim 20, wherein the warning alert comprises:

an annotation, a flag, a bookmark, an audible alert, and/or a video alert indicating presence of the suspicious activity or the prohibited activity in the communication.

23. The method of claim 17, wherein the task comprises:

entry of a response to a question by the monitoring person;

entry of a code by the monitoring person;

or

entry of a biometric verification by the monitoring person.