Patent ID: 7765232

Claim:
A computing system for facilitating the management of user identities, said computing system comprising: a processor; a memory; a registration server component, of said computing system, configured to receive a request for an identity, wherein said identity is associated with an account; an ownership component, of said computing system, configured to determine authentication rules associated with said account, wherein authentication questions to be asked of a user are based upon said authentication rules; a registration server component, of said computing system, further configured to issue said identity to said user in response to at least a portion of said authentication questions being correctly answered, wherein said authentication questions to be asked are based upon said authentication rules associated with said account; and an audit server, of said computing system, configured to monitor changes in a relationship between said user and said identity over a period of time to periodically perform an automatic adjustment of said authentication questions in response to a deterioration of said relationship, wherein said deterioration of said relationship is based upon activity of said user; said audit server further configured to assign a positive weight for a successful transaction by said user on said account, wherein said successful transaction is based on security requirements of said account and risk factors relating to various transaction types associated with said account; said audit server further configured to evaluate a current transaction of said user by comparing said current transaction to previous transactions performed by said user; assign a positive weight for a similar transaction by said user; assign a negative weight for an unsuccessful transaction by said user on said account, wherein the assigning the positive weight for the similar transaction and the assigning the negative weight are based on the comparing; aggregate said positive and negative weights to determine a usage history of said user; remove a relationship between said identity and said account when said aggregation fails to meet a predetermined criteria; and wherein said audit server is further configured to monitor aggregated behaviors, wherein said aggregated behaviors are used to weight transactions to further verify ownership of said account.