Patent ID: 7481363

Claim:
A method of authenticating a transaction, the method comprising: causing a separate unit to communicate with a device, the separate unit being secured and independently operating from the device, the separate unit configurable to include a biometric sensor to obtain biometric characteristics of a user, the biometric characteristics physically representing the user; initiating a local authentication process using the separate unit, the local authentication process comprising: obtaining the biometric characteristics of the user from the biometric sensor; decrypting stored biometric characteristics for the user; and comparing the biometric characteristics with the stored biometric characteristics; if the biometric characteristics match with the stored biometric characteristics, initiating an encrypted authentication transaction request comprising: receiving personalized data at the device from the user; recovering atomic time for usage in session key generation; encrypting the personalized data using the sessions keys, public keys and third party public keys; and sending the encrypted personalized data to the third party through the device as encrypted authentication transaction request using a challenge response protocol method, wherein the atomic time is used as a serialization and challenge response protocol variable; receiving a signal at the separate unit signing the encrypted authenticated transaction request via the device to authenticate the transaction; and digitally signing the authentication at the separate unit using the atomic time clock stamping of the transaction between the device and the third party.