Patent Issued for Secure and anonymized digital transactions (USPTO 11531952): United Services Automobile Association

2023 JAN 06 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Daily News -- A patent by the inventors Bell, Curtis Mark (San Antonio, TX, US), Dziuk, Janelle Denice (Falls City, TX, US), Guerra, Oscar (San Antonio, TX, US), Jones, Jr., David M. (San Antonio, TX, US), Khmelev, Yevgeniy Viatcheslavovich (San Antonio, TX, US), Lake, Zachery C. (Aubrey, TX, US), Martinez, Noe Albert (San Antonio, TX, US), Matheson, Cory A. (Celina, TX, US), Osterkamp, Bryan J. (New Braunsfels, TX, US), Philbrick, Ashley Raine (San Antonio, TX, US), Post, Nathan Lee (Rockport, TX, US), filed on July 29, 2020, was published online on December 20, 2022, according to news reporting originating from Alexandria, Virginia, by NewsRx correspondents.

Patent number 11531952 is assigned to United Services Automobile Association (San Antonio, Texas, United States).

The following quote was obtained by the news editors from the background information supplied by the inventors: “With the advent of electronic commerce, consumers are increasingly purchasing products and services from web merchants. Online shopping typically involves consumers entering personally identifiable information or PII (e.g., payment information and shipping information) into prompts displayed by the web merchant. This has generated a negative user experience.

“For instance, as the processing power of computers allow for greater computer functionality and the Internet technology era allows for interconnectivity between computing systems, fraudsters have developed new ways of overriding web merchant’s security protocols to access consumer data. Some web merchants require consumers to provide PII (e.g., bank account numbers, routing number) as well as identification verifications (e.g., social security, home address). These methods subject online consumers to an increased security risk. For instance, one potential risk occurs where user account related data (e.g., email addresses and passwords) at a merchant web site (or database) is hacked.

“In another example, merchants may sell or otherwise provide a consumer’s personal information for this transaction (e.g., address or phone number) to another company who then sends advertisements, email messages, text messages, mail, or other communications that are undesirable and unwanted by the consumer. But without providing this personal information, the consumer is unable to utilize the convenience of online shopping.

“As a result, many consumers would rather not divulge their personally identifiable information (PII) to web merchant. However, existing online shopping methods do not provide an adequate option for consumer to purchase a product/service without entering their PII.”

In addition to the background information obtained for this patent, NewsRx journalists also obtained the inventors’ summary information for this patent: “For the aforementioned reasons, there is a need to reduce the security risk and negative user experience associated with digital transactions. There is a need for a new software solution to automatically and securely convey consumers’ PII to web merchants without interfering in the online shopping flow of data. Disclosed herein are systems and methods capable of addressing the above described technical shortcomings. The methods and systems described herein may also provide any number of additional or alternative benefits and advantages. As described herein, embodiments of the present disclosure relate to systems, apparatuses, methods, and computer program products for anonymizing and securing digital transactions from any web page being accessed on a client device.

“Among many technical advantages provided herein, the methods and systems described provide a secure way of transmitting a user’s PII to a web merchant without interfering with the web merchant’s processing of the transaction. Therefore, even if bad actors are able to hack into the web merchant’s databases, the bad actors are still unable to obtain consumer’s PII. Therefore, the methods and systems described herein provide an additional layer of security to any digital transaction without interfering with the web merchant’s ability to process the transaction.

“In an embodiment, a method includes monitoring, by a server via a browser extension executing on an electronic user device, a web application displayed on the electronic user device; responsive to the web application executing on the user electronic device displaying an input element requesting personally identifiable information representing a shipping destination, inputting, by the server, encoded user data corresponding to the input element, whereby a web application server hosting the web application does not receive the personally identifiable information representing the shipping destination; responsive to receiving a request for the personally identifiable information from a shipping entity server that received the encoded user data from the web application server, generating, by the server, an optical code representing the personally identifiable information; responsive to receiving a request for the personally identifiable information from a shipping entity computing device that scanned the optical code from a shipping label, verifying, by the server, the shipping entity computing device; and upon verifying the shipping entity computing device, presenting, by the server, the personally identifiable information for display on the shipping entity computing device.

“In another embodiment, a computer system includes a web application server configured to execute one or more web applications on an electronic user device; a shipping entity server associated with a shipping entity computing device configured to access a user’s unencrypted data; and a server in communication with the electronic user device, shipping entity, and the merchant webserver, the server configured to monitor, via a browser extension executing on the electronic user device, a web application displayed on the electronic user device; responsive to the web application executing on the user electronic device displaying an input element requesting personally identifiable information representing a shipping destination, input encoded user data corresponding to the input element, whereby the web application server hosting the web application does not receive the personally identifiable information representing the shipping destination; responsive to receiving a request for the personally identifiable information from the shipping entity server that received the encoded user data from the web application server, generating, by the server, an optical code representing the personally identifiable information; responsive to receiving a request for the personally identifiable information from a shipping entity computing device that scanned the optical code from a shipping label, verify the shipping entity computing device; and upon verifying the shipping entity computing device, present the personally identifiable information for display on the shipping entity computing device.”

The claims supplied by the inventors are:

“1. A method comprising: monitoring, by a server, via a browser extension executing on an electronic user device, a web application displayed on the electronic user device; responsive to the web application executing on the user electronic device displaying an input element requesting personally identifiable information representing a shipping destination, inputting, by the server, encoded user data corresponding to the input element, whereby a web application server hosting the web application does not receive the personally identifiable information representing the shipping destination; responsive to receiving a request for the personally identifiable information from a shipping entity server that received the encoded user data from the web application server, generating, by the server, an optical code representing the personally identifiable information; responsive to receiving a request for the personally identifiable information from a shipping entity computing device that scanned the optical code from a shipping label, verifying, by the server, the shipping entity computing device; and upon verifying the shipping entity computing device and verifying that a passcode input by a user of the shipping entity computing device matches a label-specific passcode that is generated specifically for use with the shipping label and is known by the server, presenting, by the server, decoded user data comprising the personally identifiable information for display in the form of a decoded augmented reality label comprising the decoded user data in lieu of the encoded user data on the shipping entity computing device.

“2. The method of claim 1, further comprising: filling, by the server, the input element with a randomly generated value, wherein the randomly generated value is a randomly generated alphanumerical value corresponding to an input type required by the input element.

“3. The method of claim 1, wherein the browser extension is executing as a background process of the user electronic device.

“4. The method of claim 1, wherein the server generates the optical code based on a randomized token.

“5. The method of claim 1, wherein the server identifies whether the input element is requesting personally identifiable information based on one or more displayed keywords associated with the input element.

“6. The method of claim 1, wherein the server identifies whether the input element is requesting personally identifiable information based on a category of the input element being at least one of payment information and shipping information.

“7. The method of claim 1, wherein the optical code is a QR code or a barcode.

“8. The method of claim 7, wherein accessing the optical code comprises scanning the barcode or the QR code by a device associated with a second server.

“9. The method of claim 7, wherein presenting the decoded user data associated with a predetermined criterion comprises displaying the user data associated with the predetermined criterion on an electronic device in communication with a second server.

“10. The method of claim 1, wherein the request for the personally identifiable information from the shipping entity computing device is received in response to the shipping entity computing device reading, via a camera, the shipping label.

“11. A computer system comprising: a web application server configured to execute one or more web applications on an electronic user device; a shipping entity server associated with a shipping entity computing device configured to access a user’s unencrypted data; and a server in communication with the electronic user device, shipping entity, and a merchant webserver, the server configured to: monitor, via a browser extension executing on the electronic user device, a web application displayed on the electronic user device; responsive to the web application executing on the user electronic device displaying an input element requesting personally identifiable information representing a shipping destination, input encoded user data corresponding to the input element, whereby the web application server hosting the web application does not receive the personally identifiable information representing the shipping destination; responsive to receiving a request for the personally identifiable information from the shipping entity server that received the encoded user data from the web application server, generating, by the server, an optical code representing the personally identifiable information; responsive to receiving a request for the personally identifiable information from a shipping entity computing device that scanned the optical code from a shipping label, verify the shipping entity computing device; and upon verifying the shipping entity computing device and verifying that a passcode input by a user of the shipping entity computing device matches a label-specific passcode that is generated specifically for use with the shipping label and is known by the server, present decoded user data comprising the personally identifiable information for display in the form of a decoded augmented reality label comprising the decoded user data in lieu of the encoded user data on the shipping entity computing device.

“12. The computer system of claim 11, wherein the server is further configured to: filling the input element with a randomly generated value.

“13. The computer system of claim 12, wherein the randomly generated value is a randomly generated alphanumerical value corresponding to an input type required by the input element.

“14. The computer system of claim 11, wherein the browser extension is executing as a background process of the user electronic device.

“15. The computer system of claim 11, wherein the server generates the optical code based on a randomized token.

“16. The computer system of claim 11, wherein the server identifies whether the input element satisfies a predetermined criterion based on one or more displayed keywords associated with the input element.

“17. The computer system of claim 16, wherein the predetermined criterion is a category of the input element, the category being at least one of payment information, shipping information, and personally identifiable information.

“18. The computer system of claim 11, wherein the optical code is a QR code or a barcode.

“19. The computer system of claim 18, wherein accessing the optical code comprises scanning the barcode or the QR code by a device associated with a second server.

“20. The computer system of claim 18, wherein presenting the decoded user data associated with a predetermined criterion comprises displaying the user data associated with the predetermined criterion on an electronic device in communication with a second server.”

URL and more information on this patent, see: Bell, Curtis Mark. Secure and anonymized digital transactions. U.S. Patent Number 11531952, filed July 29, 2020, and published online on December 20, 2022. Patent URL (for desktop use only): https://ppubs.uspto.gov/pubwebapp/external.html?q=(11531952)&db=USPAT&type=ids

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