System and method for private contact sharing

• US 10,628,798 B2
• Filed: 02/20/2017
• Issued: 04/21/2020
• Est. Priority Date: 02/22/2016
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Covve Visual Network Limited
• Original Assignee: Covve Visual Network Limited
• Inventors: Gavrielides, Yiannis, Protogerellis, Alexandros
• Primary Examiner(s): Kincaid, Kristine L
• Assistant Examiner(s): Lapian, Alexander R
• Application Number:
  US15/437,246
• Publication Number:
  US 20170243162A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,156 Days
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/24575 using context
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/273 Asynchronous replication or reconciliation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/288 Entity relationship models
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/335 Filtering based on additional data, e.g. user or group profiles filtering in web context G06F16/9535, G06F16/9536
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/337 Profile generation, learning or modification
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/6254 by anonymising data, e.g. decorrelating personal data from the owner's identification
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/109 Time management, e.g. calendars, reminders, meetings or time accounting

Abstract

Disclosed is a system having a plurality of user devices, a plurality of databases, and servers in communication over a network. Each of the devices synchronizes one or more address books comprising contact information. The contact information is enhanced and then cleansed. The enhanced contact information is then hashed so that the personally identifiable information is made unavailable. The system then identifies common contacts representing the same real person and creates a single composite view of the person. Thereafter, the system shares the single composite view between users while obfuscating information that personally identifies such contacts.

Claims

1. A system for sharing contact information, comprising:

one or more non-transitory storage mediums configured to provide stored computer-readable instructions, the one or more non-transitory storage mediums coupled to one or more processors, the one or more processors configured to execute the computer-readable instructions to cause the one or more processors to;

access a contacts list of one or more address books, wherein the contacts list includes at least one contact;

enhance contact information associated with the at least one contact with populated metadata corresponding with the at least one contact from external services;

determine whether the contact information associated with the at least one contact is sharable with a non-owner of the one or more address books;

if the contact information associated with the at least one contact is sharable, hash at least a portion of the contact information associated with the at least one contact;

identify a person associated with hashed contact information;

consolidate the contact information from each of the one or more address books into a single composite view of the person;

receive, from the non-owner of the one or more address books, a request for the contact information of the at least one contact, the request including one or more criteria;

if the at least one contact meets the one or more criteria included with the request, identify an owner of the one or more address books associated with the contacts list including the at least one contact; and

send, in response to identifying the owner of the one or more address books, contact information of the owner of the one or more address books to the non-owner.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the one or more address books are fully visible to the owner and limited in visibility to the non-owner based at least on authentication credentials.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the enhance contact information comprises utilizing metadata population service comprising data mining tools and web crawling tools.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the one or more processors are further configured to:

process the contact information through a blacklist via a blacklist and whitelist service, wherein the blacklist comprises blacklist terms, further wherein the contact information is unsharable if the contact information comprises one or more of the blacklist terms.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein the one or more processors are further configured to:

process the contact information through a whitelist via a blacklist and whitelist service, wherein the whitelist comprises whitelist terms, further wherein the contact information is shareable if the contact information comprises only the whitelist terms.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein the one or more processors are further configured to:

synchronize the contacts list of the one or more address books with a contacts database.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein the one or more processors are further configured to:

receive permission from the owner of the one or more address books to share the contact information; and

in response to receiving the permission, serve the contact information.

8. The system of claim 1, wherein the one or more processors are further configured to:

prompt the owner of the one or more address books to share the contact information.

9. The system of claim 1, wherein the at least a portion of the contact information comprises personally identifiable information (PII).

10. The system of claim 1, wherein the one or more processors are further configured to:

genericize at least an additional portion of the contact information associated with the at least one contact.

11. A computer-implemented method of sharing contact information, comprising:

accessing a contacts list of one or more address books, wherein the contacts list includes at least one contact;

enhancing contact information associated with the at least one contact with populated metadata corresponding with the at least one contact from external services;

determining whether the contacts information associated with the at least one contact is sharable with a non-owner of the one or more address books;

if the contact information associated with the at least one contact is sharable, hashing at least a portion of the contact information associated with the at least one contact;

identifying a person associated with hashed contact information;

consolidating the contact information from each of the one or more address books into a single composite view of the person;

receiving, from the non-owner of the one or more address books, a request for the contact information of the at least one contact, the request including one or more criteria;

if the at least one contact meets the one or more criteria included with the request, identifying an owner of the one or more address books associated with the contacts list including the at least one contact; and

sending, in response to identifying the owner of the one or more address books, contact information of the owner of the one or more address books to the non-owner.

12. The computer-implemented method of claim 11, wherein the one or more address books are fully visible to the owner and limited in visibility to the non-owner based at least on authentication credentials.

13. The computer-implemented method of claim 11, wherein enhancing contact information comprises utilizing the metadata population service comprising data mining tools and web crawling tools.

14. The computer-implemented method of claim 11, further comprising:

processing the contact information through a blacklist via a blacklist and whitelist service, wherein the blacklist comprises blacklist terms, further wherein the contact information is unsharable if the contact information comprises one or more of the blacklist terms.

15. The computer-implemented method of claim 11, further comprising:

processing the contact information through a whitelist via a blacklist and whitelist service, wherein the whitelist comprises whitelist terms, further wherein the contact information is shareable if the contact information comprises only the whitelist terms.

16. The computer-implemented method of claim 11, further comprising:

synchronizing the contacts list of the one or more address books with a contacts database.

17. The computer-implemented method of claim 11, further comprising:

receiving permission from the owner of the one or more address books to share the contact information; and

in response to receiving the permission, serving the contact information.

18. The computer-implemented method of claim 11, further comprising:

prompting the owner of the one or more address books to share the contact information.

19. The computer-implemented method of claim 11, wherein the at least a portion of the contact information comprises personally identifiable information (PII).

20. The computer-implemented method of claim 11, further comprising:

genericizing at least an additional portion of the contact information associated with the at least one contact.