System and method for providing a secure contact management system

• US 7,660,770 B2
• Filed: 10/14/2004
• Issued: 02/09/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 10/14/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: X Corp. (f/k/a Twitter, Inc.) (X Holdings Corp.)
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Schmidt, Christopher I., Grim, Clifton E. III, Wilson, John D.
• Primary Examiner(s): Agwumezie; Charles C
• Application Number:
  US10/964,876
• Publication Number:
  US 20060085341A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,944 Days
• Field of Search: 705/50, 705/60, 713/182
• US Class Current: 705/60
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/02 Marketing; Price estimation or determination; Fundraising

Abstract

A system and method for providing a Contact Management System (CMS) so that individual owners of personal contact data may control and manage the access and dissemination of the personal data. The owner of personal contact data may securely register the data with secured information vault of the CMS and specify which other parties may have access to the personal data. In this way, duplication of the personal data is avoided, but at the same time is always current. In use, a second party'"'"'s device, such as a telephone or a PDA may access the CMS database and under public key infrastructure (PKI) controls identify themselves so that access to the owner'"'"'s personal data may be verified. Once verified, the telephone number or other data may be returned to the device where a call may be automatically placed or otherwise used.

Claims

1. A method of managing personal information, comprising:

depositing personal contact data into a secure contact management system (CMS);

identifying at least one entity to the secure CMS to enable access to the personal contact data by the at least one entity;

specifying indicia to control access to the personal contact data; and

allowing access of the personal contact data by the at least one entity based on the indicia for allowing authorized access to the personal contact data,

wherein the personal contact data is encrypted and associated with an owner'"'"'s public key,

the access by the at least one entity is accomplished using a device being at least any one of a telephone device, a personal digital assistant device (PDA) and a computer, and

the device avoids storing any of the personal contact data in persistent memory.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising charging a fee for depositing or accessing the personal contact data.

3. The method of claim 1, further comprising authenticating the owner of the personal contact data and the at least one entity.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the specifying the indicia includes defining which portions of the personal contact data that is accessible by the at least one entity.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the accessing is based on the public key of the owner of the personal contact data to locate the personal contact data.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising returning the personal contact data to the device used during the accessing and automatically placing a telephone call based on the returned personal contact data.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein the returned personal contact data avoids being stored in persistent memory in the device.

8. The method of claim 1, further comprising one of updating the personal contact data, denying access to the personal contact data, changing access information to the personal contact data and changing the indicia.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein:

the personal contact data is associated with an owner, and

the at least one entity is a person other than the owner.

10. A method of providing information to a second party, comprising:

creating an account of an owner in a secure vault;

receiving deposited contact information in the account;

establishing a relationship between the contact information and a user of the contact information in the secured vault defined by indicia provided by the owner; and

allowing access to the contact information based on the indicia to allow controlled access to the contact information by the user other than the owner,

wherein the contact information is encrypted using a public key of the vault, and

the allowing access includes returning the contact information to a user'"'"'s device for use without storing the contact information in persistent memory in the user'"'"'s device.

11. The method of claim 10, further comprising authenticating the owner and the user to permit access to the contact information.

12. The method of claim 10, wherein the indicia defines conditions for accessing the contact information.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein the conditions include at least any one of an identity of the user permitted to access the contact information, a telephone number, an address and a personal data.

14. The method of claim 10, wherein:

the contact information is associated with the owner, and

the user is a person other than the owner.

15. A secure contact management system, comprising:

a data storage medium which securely contains contact information;

a registration system which registers a plurality of users;

a contact information storage system which securely stores the contact information of a first user of the plurality of users; and

a contact information accessing system which accesses the contact information by a second user of the plurality of users and prevents the contact information from being stored in persistent memory of a device used by the second user to access the contact information, wherein the accessing is controlled based upon indicia specified by the first user and the contact information is encrypted and associated with the first user'"'"'s public key.

16. The system of claim 15, further comprising a charging system for charging any user of the plurality of users including the first user of the plurality of users, the second user of the plurality of users or an owner of the contact information for the storing or accessing the contact information.

17. The system of claim 15, further comprising a contact utilization system for controlling access and use of the contact information in the data storage medium.

18. The system of claim 15, wherein the first user differs from the second user.

19. A computer program product comprising a computer usable medium having readable program code embodied in the medium, the computer program product includes at least one component to:

deposit personal contact data by an owner into a secure contact management system (CMS), wherein the personal contact data is encrypted and associated with the owner'"'"'s public key;

identify at least one entity to the secure CMS to enable access to the personal contact data by the at least one entity;

specify indicia to control access to the personal contact data; and

access the personal contact data by the at least one entity, without storing the personal contact data in persistent memory of a device used to access the personal contact data, based on the indicia allowing authorized access to the personal contact data.

20. The method of claim 19, wherein:

the personal contact data is associated with the owner, and

the at least one entity is a person other than the owner.