Identity Service Correlating Anonymous OTT Identifiers with Real User Accounts
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Solution Overview
Problem
Over the Top (OTT) messaging systems face challenges in securely and efficiently providing user account information to user support systems, as they rely on anonymous identifiers, leading to unsatisfactory user experiences due to inaccuracies and the need for repeated queries.
Innovation Solution
An identity service is introduced to correlate anonymous identifiers from OTT communication sessions with real identifiers for user accounts, enabling secure access to user account information while maintaining user control over data sharing, using secured tokens and real identifiers paired at the user's device.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If user account identification information is transmitted through OTT messaging application, then user support staff can access user account information, but transmission errors occur due to typographical errors and insecure communication
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces an identity service as an intermediary component that receives anonymous identifiers from the OTT messaging service, generates secured tokens, and correlates them with real user identifiers. This intermediary eliminates the need for users to manually transmit account information through potentially error-prone and insecure messaging channels, while still enabling user support staff to access the correct user account information.
2Productivity
If user support staff manually query user account information through OTT communication session, then user account access is enabled, but the process is slow and unsatisfying
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary actions by pre-generating secured tokens and establishing the correlation between anonymous identifiers and real user identifiers before the user support interaction is needed. When a user initiates an OTT communication session, the identity service has already prepared the necessary token correlation, enabling immediate and automatic retrieval of user account information without requiring slow manual querying during the support interaction.
3Reliability
If OTT messaging service uses anonymous identifiers, then user privacy is protected, but user support system cannot automatically verify user identity
Solution Approach 1:
The identity service acts as a trusted intermediary that holds the correlation between anonymous identifiers and real user identifiers. It receives the anonymous identifier from the OTT messaging service, generates a secured token, and uses this token to retrieve the corresponding real user identifier from the external system. This process maintains user privacy by not exposing the correlation mapping directly, while still enabling accurate user identity verification for the user support system.
Data Source
AI summary
A method enables a user to self-identify to a user support system when a user electronic device is connected to the user support system by an over-the-top (OTT) communication session where an OTT messaging service provides an anonymous identifier to the user support system to enable communication with the user. The method includes receiving a secured real identifier and a secured token from the user electronic device in response to a user selection to self-identify to the user support system, decrypting the secured real identifier to determine a real identifier that identifies user account information at an external system, determining the anonymous identifier for the user using the secured token in a manner that associates the real identifier with the OTT communication session, and sending the real identifier to the user support system to enable access to the user account information by the user support system.