Patent ID: 8719568

Claim:
A method comprising steps of: maintaining a secure electronic storage of sensitive user data in a network accessible server; storing data, in a manner available to the server, identifying a proxy for the user; monitoring user access to the sensitive user data in the secure electronic storage; based on the monitoring, detecting a condition or event based on the user access of the server matching a pre-defined notification rule; and upon detecting said condition or event: (a) generating and sending a notification message through the network to a client device of the identified proxy; (b) conducting a secure communication procedure between the server and the client device, to validate the client device as a device of the identified proxy; and (c) upon successful validation of the identified proxy, granting the client device access through the network to the sensitive user data in the secure electronic storage, wherein at least one of: a) detecting said condition or event includes at least one of: detecting that the user has not accessed the data in the secure electronic storage during a first determined period of time, or detecting that the user has failed to respond to a notification message sent by the network accessible server within a second predetermined period of time, or b) the method further comprises storing user configuration data including identification of a third-party account associated with the user, wherein the detecting a condition or event matching a pre-defined notification rule includes detecting that the user has not accessed the third-party account during a determined period of time.