Patent ID: 8856956

Claim:
An entity verification system comprising a microprocessor and a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium with an executable program stored thereon, wherein said program instructs said microprocessor to perform sets of instructions for: receiving a request comprising at least one identifier for identifying an entity; matching said identifier to a particular data structure of a plurality of data structures stored to a trusted database, wherein the particular data structure comprises identification information that has been previously verified for the entity; identifying an account representing the entity at a social media site using the identification information; verifying that the entity is an owner of the account by monitoring for completion of a verification task comprising one of (i) return receipt of a code that the entity verification system passes to the account and (ii) performance of an association action linking the account to another account at the social media site; increasing a verification level of the entity when the entity is verified as the owner of the account upon completion of the verification task; querying to identify based on at least one item of identification information from the particular data structure, a website containing supplemental identification information about the entity, wherein the website is a different data source than the trusted database; parsing the website to identify the supplemental identification information about the entity from other information that is unrelated to the entity; corroborating the supplemental identification information from the website with the identification information from the particular data structure; and modifying the verification level of the entity by (i) increasing the verification level when the supplemental identification information from the website matches to the identification information from the particular data structure and (ii) decreasing the verification level when the identification information from the website does not match to the information from particular data structure.