Patent Issued for Digital footprint visual navigation (USPTO 11683383): Allstate Insurance Company

2023 JUL 11 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Daily News -- A patent by the inventors Hansen, Mark D. (Greensboro, NC, US), Kalke, Amaeya (Northbrook, IL, US), Liu, Dongmin (Northbrook, IL, US), Montero, Sergio G. (Northbrook, IL, US), Park, Jason (Chicago, IL, US), Parkinson, John (Wheaton, IL, US), Weidmann, Cindy (Northbrook, IL, US), deGuia, Nicolette (Chicago, IL, US), filed on December 18, 2020, was published online on June 20, 2023, according to news reporting originating from Alexandria, Virginia, by NewsRx correspondents.

Patent number 11683383 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: “A user’s digital footprint may be extensive, complex and ever evolving. The digital footprint may include multiple maps and a history component. The maps illustrate representations of where information is, organized in any of several ways. For instance, the organization may include use of multiple sets of metadata and classification schemes. The history component may allow a user to retrace the evolution of any element within the footprint or the footprint as a whole, back through time. In addition to the actual data about the individual information, additional information regarding how the data was acquired, what the information might be or has been used for, and information regarding the accuracy of the data may also be included with the user’s digital footprint.

“All of this data is overwhelming and may not be easily understood by the user. Presenting this information to a user in an intuitive, easy to use and convenient form that can be accessed via any online device, including but not limited to mobile phone, tablet, personal computer or smart television is challenging.”

In addition to the background information obtained for this patent, NewsRx journalists also obtained the inventors’ summary information for this patent: “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 to assist a user in understanding their unique digital footprint and the connections from the data within the footprint to the user’s connections online and in the physical world. The determined information may be visually displayed to the user along with recommendations regarding digital safety. The digital safety visual navigation system integrates appealing and easy to understand visual metaphors, information representations and navigation modes that may include browse, search, and actions such as tap to select, spin, swipe, stretch to expand, pinch to compress, and others that solve this challenge.

“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 method comprising: determining, by a computing device and for a plurality of items of email correspondence, a likelihood that each item of email correspondence represents an account of a plurality of accounts of a user; based on the determined likelihood, classifying each account of the plurality of accounts into a predetermined category of a plurality of categories having varied sensitivity parameters pre-associated therewith relating to sensitivity of user personal information shared via the account, wherein the classification is based at least in part on a sensitivity of user personal information shared via the account, determined based at least on a nature of a relationship between the user and a party associated with the account indicated by the email correspondence, the nature of the relationship determined based at least in part on analysis of information shared in the email; and displaying, by the computing device and on a user interface, identifiers corresponding to the plurality of accounts, wherein the identifiers are displayed in groups according to the determined category.

“2. The method of claim 1, wherein the plurality of categories includes at least acquaintances, friends, and best friends.

“3. The method of claim 2, wherein the acquaintances comprise accounts sharing information having a low sensitivity, the friends comprise accounts sharing information having a moderate sensitivity, and the best friends comprise accounts sharing information having a high sensitivity.

“4. The method of claim 2, wherein identifiers corresponding to the acquaintances, identifiers corresponding to the friends, and identifiers corresponding to the best friends are displayed with decreasing distance from an identifier of the user, with the identifiers corresponding to the acquaintances being displayed farthest from the identifier of the user and with the identifiers corresponding to the best friends being displayed closest to the identifier of the user.

“5. The method of claim 1, further comprising: after displaying the identifiers, receiving, by the computing device, a request to change a categorization of one account; and displaying, by the computing device and on the user interface, the identifiers corresponding to the accounts, wherein an identifier corresponding the one account is displayed according to the changed categorization.

“6. The method of claim 1, wherein the determining the category is further based on a regularity of conversations, a direction of conversations, and a number of conversation channels.

“7. A method comprising: determining, by a computing device, a plurality of accounts of a user, based at least in part on analysis of applications on the mobile phone; determining, by the computing device, a category for each account of the plurality of accounts, wherein the category is based on a type of information shared via the account and a sensitivity of information shared via the account, wherein the category is determined from among a plurality of categories comprising low sensitivity, medium sensitivity, and high sensitivity and wherein the determining includes determining at least one of the plurality of accounts in each category of the plurality of categories; and displaying, by the computing device and on a user interface, identifiers corresponding to the plurality of accounts, wherein the identifiers are displayed in groups according to the category.

“8. The method of claim 7, wherein identifiers corresponding to the low sensitivity, identifiers corresponding to the medium sensitivity, and identifiers corresponding to the high sensitivity are displayed with decreasing distance from an identifier of the user, with the identifiers corresponding to the low sensitivity being displayed farthest from the identifier of the user and with the identifiers corresponding to the high sensitivity being displayed closest to the identifier of the user.

“9. The method of claim 7, further comprising: after displaying the identifiers, receiving, by the computing device, a request to change a categorization of one account; and displaying, by the computing device and on the user interface, the identifiers corresponding to the accounts, wherein an identifier corresponding the one account is displayed according to the changed categorization.

“10. The method of claim 7, wherein the determining the category is further based on a regularity of conversations, a direction of conversations, and a number of conversation channels.

“11. The method of claim 7, wherein the determining the plurality of accounts of the user comprises: determining, for a plurality of items of email correspondence, a likelihood that each item of email correspondence represents an account of the plurality of accounts of the user.”

URL and more information on this patent, see: Hansen, Mark D. Digital footprint visual navigation. U.S. Patent Number 11683383, filed December 18, 2020, and published online on June 20, 2023. Patent URL (for desktop use only): https://ppubs.uspto.gov/pubwebapp/external.html?q=(11683383)&db=USPAT&type=ids

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