“Digital Safety and Account Discovery” in Patent Application Approval Process (USPTO 20230018050): Allstate Insurance Company

2023 FEB 02 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Daily News -- A patent application by the inventors Park, Jason D. (Chicago, IL, US); Parkinson, John S. (Burlington, VT, US), filed on May 24, 2021, was made available online on January 19, 2023, according to news reporting originating from Washington, D.C., by NewsRx correspondents.

This patent application is assigned to Allstate Insurance Company (Northbrook, Illinois, United States).

The following quote was obtained by the news editors from the background information supplied by the inventors: “Protecting confidential information in today’s online environment is difficult due to the increased connectivity and the increased number of consumer accounts accessible via web enabled computing devices. Consumers today have a large number of online subscriptions and keeping track of all of them is difficult and time consuming. Many consumers have subscriptions and financial accounts that they have long forgotten about but those subscriptions and financial accounts may still be active and accessible online. It is important from a digital safety perspective that consumer be aware of all of their online accounts and be diligent in closing unused or no longer wanted subscriptions.

“Further, as consumers continue to gain an ever-increasing presence in online environments, there will be an ever-present need to better protect consumers from confidential information being breached (e.g., made available publicly) in order to protect consumers from fraud and/or other harms.”

In addition to the background information obtained for this patent application, NewsRx journalists also obtained the inventors’ summary information for this patent application: “In light of the foregoing background, the following presents a simplified summary of the present disclosure in order to provide a basic understanding of some aspects of the invention. This summary is not an extensive overview of the invention. It is not intended to identify key or critical elements of the invention or to delineate the scope of the invention. The following summary merely presents some concepts of the invention in a simplified form as a prelude to the more detailed description provided below.

“Aspects of the disclosure address one or more of the issues mentioned above by disclosing methods, computer readable storage media, software, systems, and apparatuses for use by a consumer in order to keep track of a consumer’s accounts and to prevent unauthorized access or use of the consumers identified subscriptions and financial accounts. The discovered subscriptions and financial accounts may be listed and displayed to the consumer along with recommendations and assistance for closing any discovered unused or unwanted financial accounts and subscriptions. The described cyber-security system may prevent unauthorized access, use, and security breaches by unauthorized users and devices of the consumer’s accounts.

“In some aspects, the cyber-security system may include a cyber-security account analysis system and a cyber-security data processing system. The cyber-security system may include at least one processor and a memory unit storing computer-executable instructions. The cyber-security system may be configured to, in operation, generate a consumer profile based on consumer information, scan a consumer device to determine potential security threat, and associate the consumer device and the results of the scan with the generated consumer profile. The cyber-security system may also be configured to, in operation, monitor at least one email account of the consumer. The cyber security system may be configured to, in operation, determine source information for each email correspondence in the monitored at least one email account. Based on the determined source information for each email correspondence, the cyber-security system may generate a list of financial institutions and other businesses associated with the consumer. The cyber-security system may, in operation, also determine for each email correspondence a likelihood that each email correspondence represents an account of the consumer. Based on the determined likelihood that each email correspondence represents a subscription of the consumer, the cyber-security system may generate a list of accounts associated with the consumer.

“In other aspects, the cyber-security system may also be configured to, in operation, monitor at least a consumer’s internet browser history and internet browser cache in addition to a consumer’s email accounts. The cyber security system may be configured to, in operation, generate a list of financial institutions and other businesses associated with the consumer based on a consumer’s internet browser history and internet browser cache. Using the various lists of financial institutions and other businesses created from the analysis of a consumer’s email, browser history, and browser cache, the cyber-security system may, in operation, also determine the likelihood whether a consumer has an account to the various financial institutions and other businesses.

“The cyber-security system may, in operation, recommend closing accounts associated with the consumer based on security recommendations. The cyber-security system may also, in operation, assist or automate closing of any selected accounts. The cyber-security system may also in operation, assist or automate updating personal information contained within any of the selected accounts, such as updating a consumer’s address after a move across all of the consumer’s selected accounts.

“Of course, the methods and systems of the above-referenced embodiments may also include other additional elements, steps, computer-executable instructions, or computer-readable data structures. In this regard, other embodiments are disclosed and claimed herein as well. The details of these and other embodiments of the present invention are set forth in the accompanying drawings and the description below. Other features and advantages of the invention will be apparent from the description, drawings, and claims.”

The claims supplied by the inventors are:

“1. A cyber-security account analysis system comprising: a processor; a memory unit storing computer-executable instructions, which when executed by the processor, cause the cyber-security account analysis system to: monitor web browser history of a consumer; analyze the web browser history of the consumer to include one or more of the following: which websites the consumer visited, which websites stored cookies on a device of the consumer, how frequently the consumer visited specific web sites, or how recently the consumer visited the web sites; generate a list of businesses associated with the consumer based on the analysis of web browser history; determine a likelihood that each business from the list of businesses represents a business the consumer has an account; generate a list of potential accounts associated with the consumer based on the list of businesses, the likelihood, and analyzing the web browser history of the consumer; identify unused accounts associated with the consumer from the list of potential accounts; recommend closing the unused accounts based on security recommendations, wherein the security recommendations are based on consumer confidential information being associated with the unused accounts; receive indication of one or more unused accounts to be closed from consumer; and initiate an account closing process for each of the one or more unused accounts indicated to be closed.

“2. The cyber-security account analysis system of claim 1, wherein the cyber-security account analysis system is further configured to identify high risk accounts based on the security recommendations.

“3. The cyber-security account analysis system of claim 1, wherein the cyber-security account analysis system is further configured to identify the unused accounts by determining a frequency the consumer accesses each account associated with a consumer.

“4. The cyber-security account analysis system of claim 3, wherein the identification of the unused accounts is based on a number of consecutive days of account inactivity.

“5. The cyber-security account analysis system of claim 1, wherein the cyber-security account analysis system is further configured to display a hyperlink for each unused account to enable the consumer to close the corresponding unused account upon hyperlink activation.

“6. (canceled)

“7. The cyber-security account analysis system of claim 1, wherein the cyber-security account analysis system is further configured to determine a consumer digital safety score based on the generated list of potential accounts associated with the consumer.

“8. The cyber-security account analysis system of claim 1, wherein the identification of the unused accounts is based on an identification of sources of the potential accounts.

“9. A method comprising: monitoring web browser history of a consumer; analyzing the web browser history of the consumer to include one or more of the following: which websites the consumer visited, which websites stored cookies on a device of the consumer, how frequently the consumer visited specific websites, or how recently the consumer visited the websites; generating a list of businesses associated with the consumer based on analyzing the web browser history; determining a likelihood that each business from the list of businesses represents a business the consumer has an account; generating a list of potential accounts associated with the consumer based on the list of businesses, the likelihood, and analyzing the web browser history of the consumer; identifying unused accounts associated with the consumer from the list of potential accounts; recommending closing the unused accounts based on security recommendations, wherein the security recommendations are based on consumer confidential information being associated with the unused accounts; receiving indication of one or more unused accounts to be closed from consumer; and initiating an account closing process for each of the one or more unused accounts indicated to be closed.

“10. The method of claim 9, further comprising: identifying high risk accounts based on the security recommendations.

“11. The method of claim 9, wherein the identification of the unused accounts is based on a number of consecutive days of account inactivity.

“12. The method of claim 9, wherein the identification of the unused accounts is based on an identification of sources of the potential accounts.

“13. The method of claim 9, further comprising: determining a consumer digital safety score based on the generated list of potential accounts associated with the consumer.

“14. The method of claim 9, further comprising: displaying a hyperlink for each unused account to enable the consumer to close the corresponding unused account upon hyperlink activation.

“15. (canceled)

“16. A non-transitory computer-readable medium storing instructions that, when executed by a computing device, causes the computing device to: monitor web browser history of a consumer; analyze the web browser history of the consumer to include one or more of the following: which websites the consumer visited, which websites stored cookies on a device of the consumer, how frequently the consumer visited specific websites, or how recently the consumer visited the websites; generate a list of businesses associated with the consumer based on analyzing the web browser history; determine a likelihood that each business from the list of businesses represents a business the consumer has an account; generate a list of potential accounts associated with the consumer based on the list of businesses, the likelihood, and analyzing the web browser history of the consumer; identify unused accounts associated with the consumer from the list of potential accounts; recommend closing the unused accounts based on security recommendations, wherein the security recommendations are based on consumer confidential information being associated with unused accounts; receive indication of one or more unused accounts to be closed from consumer; and initiate an account closing process for each of the one or more unused accounts indicated to be closed.

“17. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 16, wherein the identification of the unused accounts is based on a number of consecutive days of account inactivity.

“18. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 16, wherein the instructions further cause the computing device to: identify high risk accounts based on the security recommendations.

“19. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 16, wherein the identification of the unused accounts is based on an identification of sources of the potential accounts.

“20. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 16, wherein the instructions further cause the computing device to: determine a consumer digital safety score based on the generated list of potential accounts associated with the consumer.”

URL and more information on this patent application, see: Park, Jason D.; Parkinson, John S. Digital Safety and Account Discovery. U.S. Patent Application Number 20230018050, filed May 24, 2021 and posted January 19, 2023. Patent URL (for desktop use only): https://ppubs.uspto.gov/pubwebapp/external.html?q=(20230018050)&db=US-PGPUB&type=ids

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