Abstract:
Embodiments of the present invention address deficiencies of the art in respect to privacy data management and provide a novel and non-obvious method, system and computer program product for trusted statement verification for data privacy. In one embodiment of the invention, a method for trusted statement verification for data privacy can be provided. The method can include deducing a claim from an attribute for personal data for an end user, receiving a request from a personal data consumer to vouch for an assertion based upon the attribute, comparing the assertion to the claim, and providing a voucher for the assertion to the personal data consumer on behalf of the end user if the claim supports the assertion without revealing the attribute to the personal data consumer.

Description:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 
       [0001]    1. Field of the Invention 
         [0002]    The present invention is related to the field of data privacy and identity management in a computer communications network, and more particularly to data parsimony in pseudonymous e-commerce transactions. 
         [0003]    2. Description of the Related Art 
         [0004]    Data privacy and identity management refers to the exercise of dominion and control over one&#39;s identity and personal data when engaging in computing transactions in a computer communications network. While always deemed to be important, in an age of Internet e-commerce, data privacy and identity management has moved to the forefront of the information technology community. Generally, data privacy and identity management ranges from the storage of personal data in a secure identity management and the limitation of the distribution of privacy data to complex creation, exchange and processing of certificates and credentials in an e-commerce transaction to preserve the confidentiality of the identity of an end user and associated end user data. 
         [0005]    Anonymous credentialing is a form of data privacy and identity management that refers to the obscuring of an individual in a computing system through a trusted intermediary when interacting with computing entities in a computer communications network. The purpose of anonymous credentialing is to shield the individual from disclosing access and usage patterns from the computing entities when interacting with the computing entities. Use cases for anonymous credentialing including not only single-sign-on applications, but also e-commerce scenarios such as anonymous bidding in an auction environment. The identity mixer project from the Zurich Research Laboratory of International Business Machines Corporation represents one such form of anonymous credentialing. 
         [0006]    Despite the general desirability to withhold private information in an e-commerce transaction, for many transaction types, the exchange of personal data is required. Examples include the submission of credit applications, the establishment of a brokerage account and the completion of online government documents. Many transactions in this regard require the presentation of personal data sufficient to establish a minimum age, a general location of residence, or the possession of minimum funds in a bank account. In consequence, end users can be compelled to share personal data despite a desire to preserve the privacy of personal data. 
         [0007]    To address some of the concerns arising from the undesirable albeit required sharing of personal data, multi-lateral identity management systems have been proposed in which a trusted third party enjoys a trusted relationship with a first set of end users sharing personal data and second set of end users consuming the personal data of the first set of end users. In the multi-lateral identity management architecture, end users take comfort in the judgment of the trusted third party to only share personal information with trustworthy consumers. The trustworthy consumers, in turn, enjoy the security of relying upon the trusted third party vouching for the accuracy of shared personal data. 
         [0008]    Despite the trustworthy nature of the intermediate third party in a multi-lateral arrangement, the third party still can only share the privacy data requested—no more, no less. Consequently, despite best intentions, the trusted third party can over-disclose confidential data where only an assertion supported by the confidential data is required. Specifically, where it must be known whether or not an end user is of majority age, it is not necessary to disclose a birth date for the end user, just a confirmation that indeed the end user is of majority age. Similarly, where it must be known whether or not an end user possesses a threshold amount of cash in a bank account, it is not necessary to disclose a bank balance for the bank account, just a confirmation that indeed the bank account has a sufficient bank balance to meet the required threshold. 
       BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION 
       [0009]    Embodiments of the present invention address deficiencies of the art in respect to data privacy and provide a novel and non-obvious method, system and computer program product for trusted statement verification for data privacy. In one embodiment of the invention, a method for trusted statement verification for data privacy can be provided. The method can include deducing a claim from an attribute for personal data for an end user, receiving a request from a personal data consumer to vouch for an assertion based upon the attribute, comparing the assertion to the claim, and providing a voucher for the assertion to the personal data consumer on behalf of the end user if the claim supports the assertion without revealing the attribute to the personal data consumer. 
         [0010]    In one aspect of the embodiment, deducing a claim from an attribute for personal data for an end user can include manually mapping a claim to the attribute. In contrast, in another aspect of the embodiment, deducing a claim from an attribute for personal data for an end user can include automatically mapping a claim to the attribute according to a rule in a rule base. For instance, automatically mapping a claim to the attribute according to a rule in a rule base can include receiving the attribute from the end user over a computer communications network, and applying a rule to generate at least one claim from the attribute. 
         [0011]    In another embodiment of the invention, an e-commerce data processing system can be configured for trusted statement verification. The system can include a voucher service configured for communications both with an end user and a personal data consumer over a computer communications network. The system further can include a mapping of attributes of personal data to claims for the personal data. Notably, the voucher service can include program code enabled to compare an assertion received from a personal data consumer to a claim in the mapping and to provide a voucher for the assertion to the personal data consumer on behalf of the end user if the claim supports the assertion without revealing the attribute to the personal data consumer. 
         [0012]    In one aspect of the embodiment, an attribute-to-claims engine can be provided. The engine can include program code enabled to generate the mapping for the attributes by deducing at least one claim for the attributes according to at least one rule in a rule base. For example, the assertion can be a required bank account balance and the claim can be an available bank account balance in excess of a fixed amount. As another example, the assertion can be a required age and the claim can be an age range exceeding a fixed amount. 
         [0013]    Additional aspects of the invention will be set forth in part in the description which follows, and in part will be obvious from the description, or may be learned by practice of the invention. The aspects of the invention will be realized and attained by means of the elements and combinations particularly pointed out in the appended claims. It is to be understood that both the foregoing general description and the following detailed description are exemplary and explanatory only and are not restrictive of the invention, as claimed. 
     
    
     
       BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE SEVERAL VIEWS OF THE DRAWINGS 
         [0014]    The accompanying drawings, which are incorporated in and constitute part of this specification, illustrate embodiments of the invention and together with the description, serve to explain the principles of the invention. The embodiments illustrated herein are presently preferred, it being understood, however, that the invention is not limited to the precise arrangements and instrumentalities shown, wherein: 
           [0015]      FIG. 1  is a pictorial illustration of a process for trusted statement verification for privacy data management; 
           [0016]      FIG. 2  is a schematic illustration of an e-commerce data processing system configured for trusted statement verification for privacy data management; and, 
           [0017]      FIG. 3  is a flow chart illustrating a process for trusted statement verification for privacy data management. 
       
    
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION 
       [0018]    Embodiments of the present invention provide a method, system and computer program product for trusted statement verification for data privacy. In accordance with an embodiment of the present invention, personal data attributes can be classified according to type and claimed assertions can be defined for evaluation against the classified attributes. Thereafter, the claimed assertions can be mapped to the classified attributes. Finally, requests for voucher can be received in connection with a publisher of attributes. The voucher requests can be compared to the claims mapped to the attributes to determine whether or not a voucher can be issued as requested without revealing the attributes. In this way, the confidentiality of the attributes can be maintained while satisfying the need to vouch for the publisher of the attributes. 
         [0019]    In further illustration,  FIG. 1  is a pictorial illustration of a process for trusted statement verification for data privacy. As shown in  FIG. 1 , an intermediate voucher service  130  can be disposed between an end user  110  publisher of personal data  140  and an e-commerce consumer  120  seeking a voucher based upon the personal data  140 . To that end, within map  160  attributes of the personal data  140  provided by the end user  110  can be mapped to one or more claims  150  able to be deduced from the personal data  140 . Subsequently, voucher requests  170 A by the e-commerce consumer  120  can be matched to one or more of the claims  150  and, if the matched ones of the claims  120  meet the requirements of the voucher request  170 A, an affirmative voucher response  170 B can be provided to the e-commerce consumer  120  without revealing the underlying personal data  140  to the e-commerce consumer  120 . 
         [0020]    Notably, the transformation of personal data  140  into one or more claims  150  can be driven by a policy  180 A specified by the end user  110 , for instance in the form of WS-Policy based expressions. The policy can  180 A can act as a filter limiting what types of personal data  140  can be transformed into a claim  150 . Additionally, the policy  180 A can act as a filter limiting or augmenting what types of voucher requests  170 A are honored with a response  170 B. By comparison, a policy  180 B can be specified by the e-commerce consumer  120  to indicate what types of personal data  140  are preferred. The voucher service  130  can process both policies  180 A,  180 B to limit the matching of a voucher request  170 A with the claims  150 . For example, the end user  110  can specify a policy to withhold or add salary range data, whereas the e-commerce consumer  120  can specify a policy to request salary range data to better market products or services to the end user  110 . 
         [0021]    The process of trusted statement verification can be performed in an e-commerce data processing system. In this regard,  FIG. 2  schematically depicts an e-commerce data processing system configured for trusted statement verification for data privacy. Referring to  FIG. 2 , one or more end user publishers  210  of private data can be communicatively coupled to a voucher service  250  over computer communications network  240 . Each of the end user publishers  210  can include a data store of personal data  220 . Additionally, one or more voucher consumers  230  can be communicatively coupled to the voucher service  250  over the computer communications network  240 . 
         [0022]    The voucher service  250  can include a map  270  of attributes to claims. Specifically, attributes for private data within the data store  120  for each of the end user publishers  210  can be mapped to claims deduced from the attributes. Specifically, one or more attributes can be generalized into a basic statement. For example, the attribute “bank account balance=$100,000.00US” can be deduced into the claim “bank account balance&gt;$25,000.00US”. Similarly, the attribute “birth date=01-01-1970” can be deduced into the claim “age&gt;35”. As it will be apparent, multiple different claims can be deduced for each attribute or combination of attributes. Additionally, the claims can be generated manually, or in an automated fashion by applying rules in a rules base in an attribute to claims engine  260 . An exemplary rule in a rule base would include “for a provided bank balance, identify all required balances supported by the provided balance in increments of $10,000 upwards of $100,000”. 
         [0023]    An application programming interface (API)  280  to the voucher service  250  can be provided. The API  280  can be exposed to the voucher consumers  230  such that the consumers  230  can issue voucher requests to the voucher service  250 . Each of the voucher requests provided by a requesting one of the voucher consumers  230  can be compared to the claims in the map  270  and a voucher response to each of the voucher requests in the form of a secure token can be provided to the requesting one of the voucher consumers  230  where a mapped claim can support the voucher request. For example, a voucher request for “age&gt;40” can be matched to a claim “age&gt;40” or a claim “age&gt;45” and a token can be returned accordingly. Yet, the attribute “birth date=01-01-60” need not be revealed in the token. 
         [0024]    In yet further illustration of the operation of the voucher service  250 ,  FIG. 3  is a flow chart illustrating a process for trusted statement verification for data privacy. Beginning in block  310 , a voucher request can be received for an assertion based upon attributes of personal data for a target end user. In block  320 , one or more relevant claims can be located that have been mapped to the attributes. Thereafter, in block  330 , the voucher request can be compared to each located claim and in decision block  340  it can be determined whether a token can be provided to the requestor vouching for the assertion. If so, in block  350  a voucher can be provided in the form of a token. Otherwise in block  360 , the voucher can be denied. 
         [0025]    Embodiments of the invention can take the form of an entirely hardware embodiment, an entirely software embodiment or an embodiment containing both hardware and software elements. In a preferred embodiment, the invention is implemented in software, which includes but is not limited to firmware, resident software, microcode, and the like. Furthermore, the invention can take the form of a computer program product accessible from a computer-usable or computer-readable medium providing program code for use by or in connection with a computer or any instruction execution system. 
         [0026]    For the purposes of this description, a computer-usable or computer readable medium can be any apparatus that can contain, store, communicate, propagate, or transport the program for use by or in connection with the instruction execution system, apparatus, or device. The medium can be an electronic, magnetic, optical, electromagnetic, infrared, or semiconductor system (or apparatus or device) or a propagation medium. Examples of a computer-readable medium include a semiconductor or solid state memory, magnetic tape, a removable computer diskette, a random access memory (RAM), a read-only memory (ROM), a rigid magnetic disk and an optical disk. Current examples of optical disks include compact disk-read only memory (CD-ROM), compact disk-read/write (CD-R/W) and DVD. 
         [0027]    A data processing system suitable for storing and/or executing program code will include at least one processor coupled directly or indirectly to memory elements through a system bus. The memory elements can include local memory employed during actual execution of the program code, bulk storage, and cache memories which provide temporary storage of at least some program code in order to reduce the number of times code must be retrieved from bulk storage during execution. Input/output or I/O devices (including but not limited to keyboards, displays, pointing devices, etc.) can be coupled to the system either directly or through intervening I/O controllers. Network adapters may also be coupled to the system to enable the data processing system to become coupled to other data processing systems or remote printers or storage devices through intervening private or public networks. Modems, cable modem and Ethernet cards are just a few of the currently available types of network adapters.