Anonymous Service Member Support via Token Authentication
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Solution Overview
Problem
Police officers and other members of service face stress and trauma on a daily basis, often hesitant to seek help due to fear of identification, leading to unaddressed mental health issues and potential negative impacts on their performance and behavior.
Innovation Solution
A system providing anonymous access to emotional health support resources through a networked device, using a data packet and authentication server to ensure user anonymity, allowing for interactive assessment and allocation of appropriate support resources, including virtual meetings and peer support.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If MOS seek help through social counseling, then mental health support is provided, but fear of identification and ridicule prevents them from expressing needs and concerns
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces an authentication server as an intermediary between the MOS and support resources. The server verifies group IDs and issues tokens that enable anonymous access, mediating the interaction to ensure both anonymity and proper authentication without requiring direct identification of users
Solution Approach 2:
The system creates a copy of the authentication process that preserves anonymity. Instead of using real identities, the system uses group IDs and tokens as copies that represent user authorization without revealing personal information, allowing MOS to access resources anonymously
2Ease of operation
If anonymous access is provided to support resources, then MOS can seek help without fear of identification, but authentication and access control becomes more complex
Solution Approach 1:
The authentication system is segmented into distinct components: group ID verification, token issuance, and resource access control. This segmentation allows each component to handle a specific aspect of anonymous authentication, reducing overall system complexity while maintaining security
Solution Approach 2:
The system changes authentication parameters from traditional username/password or ID-based authentication to group ID and token-based authentication. This parameter change simplifies the authentication process for users while maintaining access control, as tokens can be validated without storing or processing personal user information
3Device complexity
If traditional authentication methods are used, then access control is straightforward, but MOS cannot maintain anonymity when seeking support resources
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts the identifying information from the authentication process. Instead of using personal identifiers, the system uses only group IDs and tokens that do not contain personal information, separating the authentication function from the identification function to protect MOS anonymity
Data Source
AI summary
A method and system of providing emotional health support resources to a member of a service (MOS) are provided. A data packet is received from a user device of a user. A group identification (ID) is extracted from the data packet. The group ID is sent to an authentication server for authentication. Upon not receiving a token from the authentication server, the user is blocked from support resources of a private network. Upon receiving a token from the authentications server, the user is identified as an anonymous authorized member of service (MOS). Information is interactively requested and received from the anonymous MOS. One or more support resources of the private network are identified based on the received information from the anonymous MOS. Access is provided to the one or more support resources of the private network via the user device.