Identity Protection

• US 20080103799A1
• Filed: 08/28/2007
• Published: 05/01/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 10/25/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Csidentity Corporation (Experian plc)
• Original Assignee: Identitytruth, Inc. (Experian plc)
• Inventors: Seri, Iris, Domenikos, Steven D., Astras, Stamatis
• Granted Patent: US 8,359,278 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0185 Product, service or business identity fraud
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/08 Insurance

Abstract

In general, in one aspect, the invention relates to a system for providing identity protection that, in one embodiment, includes a fraud model for specifying patterns of events indicative of identity fraud and a business rules subsystem used to identify fraud that is specified by the fraud models. The system aggregates data from a variety of sources, and has an analytical engine that operates on the aggregated data and determines, using the business rules, whether there are events that are correlative with the fraud models that are indicative of fraud.

Claims

1. A system for providing identity fraud risk indicia, comprising:

a fraud model subsystem for specifying patterns of events indicative of identity fraud;

a business rules subsystem that, based on the fraud models, specifies rules to identify fraud;

a data aggregation subsystem that collects data input from a variety of sources, the data sources comprising demographic data for individuals, asset data for individuals, event occurrence data, identity theft statistical data, and personal data; and

an analytical engine for processing the data aggregated by the data aggregation subsystem to provide a numerical measure of identity theft risk associated with an individual.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the analytical engine further provides a prediction of fraud events that are likely to occur.

3. The system of claim 2, wherein the prediction comprises a probability that such fraud events are likely to occur.

4. The system of claim 2, wherein the analytical engine further provides recommendations of steps to be taken to avoid predicted fraud events.

5. The system of claim 1, wherein the numerical measure is an identity health score.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein the numerical measure is higher for increased risk and lower for decreased risk.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein the numerical measure is lower for increased risk and higher for decreased risk.

8. The system of claim 1, wherein the analytical engine determines a likelihood of identity theft by evaluating the individual'"'"'s credit-related assets, the value of the credit-related assets that an identity thief could attack, a likelihood that an identity thief would attack the identified credit-related assets, and the demographic information of the individual.

9. The system of claim 1, wherein the identity theft risk measure is determined at least in part by the occurrence of a particular event with respect to an individual.

10. The system of claim 9, wherein the event comprises a change or addition to the individual'"'"'s personal or credit data.

11. The system of claim 9, wherein the event comprises a data breach report from an organization.

12. The system of claim 1, wherein the measure of identity theft risk is determined at least in part by a comparison of the fraud model with an event that occurred.

13. The system of claim 1, where the analytical engine identifies fraud events that are likely to occur.

14. The system of claim 13, wherein the fraud events are compared to fraud scenarios.

15. The system of claim 13, further comprising rulesets, and wherein the analytical engine uses the rulesets to evaluate events that have occurred.

16. The system of claim 1, further comprising a communication subsystem for communicating to the individual fraud events that are likely to occur.

17. The system of claim 16, wherein the communication subsystem further provides advice to the individual on steps to take that are relevant to the fraud events likely to occur.

18. The system of claim 1, wherein the analytical engine, in providing the numerical measure of identity theft risk associated with the individual, determines the occurrence of identity theft for individuals with a demographic profile.

19. The system of claim 1, further comprising a communication subsystem for communicating the numerical measure to a financial organization.

20. The system of claim 1, further comprising a communication subsystem for alerting the individual to a change in numerical measure over time.