Patent ID: 8406421

Claim:
A method of securely accessing a voice-enabled communication terminal, having certain functions associated therewith, using an Internet Protocol (IP) comprising: receiving user authentication data, from users using secure personal authentication reader (SPAR device), from a plurality of Secure Profile Management Point (SPM) points, each of the SPM points including an IP phone and a SPAR device, the IP phone and the SPAR device of each of the plurality of the SPM points being coupled, through a voice local area network (VLAN) and a gateway, to a plurality of servers and a Multi-modal Application Platform Application (MAP) engine; receiving a request from one of the SPAR devices; based on the received request, the MAP engine, identifying the source of the request among the SPAR devices; identifying the type of user authentication data received; using an authentication server, receiving a response from the authentication server that includes one or more attributes uniquely identifying the user; performing authentication of a user; upon positive authentication of the user, retrieving the user profile for storage and building a telephony configuration according to the stored user profile; transmitting to the user a list of available communication and business services according to a user's profile and permission; based on the authenticated user's profile and location of the originating SPAR device and association of the SPAR device with an IP phone, publishing user-related presence information to a presence server; and based on the authenticated user profile and user-related presence information, initiating an automated multi-modal session between the user and available and permissible business services.