Patent ID: 7540015

Claim:
A system for conducting a transaction with privacy on a wide area network, said system including a plurality of personal access devices (PADs) each contained in a manually portable housing and capable of generating interactive commands transmitted wirelessly, a privacy provider for communication with the PADs, a privacy network, and a plurality of vendors, with each of the privacy provider, the privacy network, and the plurality of vendors connected to a wide area network for communication with each other, the improvement comprising: each PAD including memory for storing unique Privacy Subscriber Identification (PSID) data corresponding to a subscriber to said system, each manually portable PAD storing a subscriber profile including information related to the subscriber; wherein the privacy provider is a privacy service provider (PSP) which stores at least a portion of the subscriber profile of each manually portable PAD, each manually portable PAD being accessible by said PSP based on first predetermined subscriber information that sets a first condition for proceeding with the transaction to perform either automatic authorization of the transaction without querying a subscriber with the PAD or manual authorization of the transaction by querying the subscriber to enter a command into the PAD as established by the subscriber in said subscriber's profile for controlling the processing of requests for authorization of the transaction, and said PSP being responsive in real-time to the interactive and wirelessly transmitted commands from said manually portable PAD; wherein each vendor is registered with the privacy network as a registered vendor (RV) in order to conduct the transaction involving a subscriber; and wherein the privacy network is a privacy shield network (PSN) structured to carry communications relating to the transaction between said PSP and a specific RV based on second predetermined subscriber information that sets a second condition as specifically established by the subscriber in said subscriber's profile for controlling the completion of the transaction; whereby the specific RV completes the transaction based on the communications with the PSN and without access to personal data of the subscriber, thereby preserving the privacy of the subscriber.