Patent ID: 7069427

Claim:
A method of handling personally identifiable information, said method comprising: defining a limited number of privacy-related actions regarding said personally identifiable information; constructing a rule for each of said privacy-related actions, wherein each rule defines an action corresponding to an associated privacy-related action, a logical condition that identifies a condition under which a particular decision is generated, and a decision indicating a manner by which said associated privacy-related action is to be performed; creating a programming object containing a set of rules, wherein the set of rules comprises at least one of said constructed rules; associating said programming object with said personally identifiable information; processing a request using the programming object containing said set of rules, wherein processing said request comprises: determining if said set of rules includes at least one rule having an action corresponding to an action specified in the request, a condition that evaluates to “true,” and a decision that indicates that the action is authorized; selecting a rule in the set of rules that has an action corresponding to said action specified in the request, said condition that evaluates to “true.” and said decision that indicates that the action is authorized; and providing an output based on selecting said rule in the set of rules.