Patent ID: 8219771

Claim:
A portable device, comprising: a housing for the portable device capable of being carried by a certain person and in the form of a smart card; and a circuit contained within the smart card housing, the circuit comprising: a communications interface circuit; a memory operable to store private data concerning that certain person and for storing third party access parameters defining a plurality of restricted levels of third party read/write access to the memory for read and write operations with respect to the stored private data based on who the third party is, wherein relationships between the restricted level and who the third party is are specified and stored into the memory by that certain person to which the stored private data concerns; and a processing unit coupled to the communications interface circuit and the memory, the processing unit operable, in response to communications interface circuit receipt of a third party request for access to the memory, to: evaluate the third party access parameters stored in the memory in the context of the third party request for access to the memory; select one of the plurality of levels of third party read/write access to the memory; and control requesting third party reading of private data concerning the certain person from the portable device's memory through the communications interface circuit and controlling requesting third party writing of private data concerning the certain person to the portable device's memory through the communications interface circuit based on the selected level of third party read/write access.