ANONYMOUS TWO WAY COMMUNICATIONS SYSTEM & METHOD

• US 20140258421A1
• Filed: 03/11/2013
• Published: 09/11/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 03/11/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: PowerSchool Group LLC
• Original Assignee: GroupCast LLC
• Inventors: Langhorst, Paul J., Meiners, Paul J., Moore, Joe H., Palacios, Joseph R., Palacios, Kyle R.
• Granted Patent: US 10,084,741 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/206
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 51/48 Message addressing, e.g. address format or anonymous messages, aliases
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/0421 Anonymous communication, i.e. the party's identifiers are hidden from the other party or parties, e.g. using an anonymizer
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 12/02 Protecting privacy or anonymity, e.g. protecting personally identifiable information [PII]
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 12/75 Temporary identity

Abstract

A system and method for allowing two-way anonymous communication. A message is received by the system, and a unique user ID is created and associated with the sender'"'"'s contact information. The message if forwarded to the appropriate administrative user, along with the user ID but not the sender'"'"'s contact information. A response from the administrative user may then be routed back to the sender by matching the user ID associated with the response with the contact information associated with that user ID. Thus, communication with possible without the parties knowing the identity of the other party.

Claims

1. A system for allowing anonymous communication comprising:

an incoming message module for receiving an incoming phone or text message from a sender;

an anonymizer for generating a unique user ID based on contact information associated with the sender;

a database for storing the user ID as associated with the sender'"'"'s contact information; and

an alert distributor for determining an appropriate administrative user to receive the message based on permissions stored in the database, and for forwarding the message to the appropriate administrative user.

2. The system of claim 1 further comprising:

a response module for receiving a response from the administrative user;

a decoder for determining the sender'"'"'s contact information; and

a response distributor for forwarding the response to the sender.

3. The system of claim 2 wherein the anonymizer uses a cryptographic algorithm to encode the sender'"'"'s contact information into the user ID.

4. The system of claim 3 wherein the decoder determines the sender'"'"'s contact information by decoding the user ID.

5. A method for allowing anonymous communication comprising the steps of:

receiving an incoming message via phone call or text message from a sender;

generating an anonymous unique user ID based on contact information associated with the sender;

storing the user ID as associated with the sender'"'"'s contact information in a dtabase;

determining an appropriate administrative user to receive the message based on permissions stored in the database; and

forwarding the message to the appropriate administrative user.

6. The method of claim 5 further comprising:

receiving a response from the administrative user;

determining the sender'"'"'s contact information; and

forwarding the response to the sender.