Search Engine Privacy Protector Redaction
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Solution Overview
Problem
Search engines face a dilemma in balancing data accessibility and privacy, as they must either exclude restricted information, depriving employees of authorized data or include it, potentially exposing unauthorized data to users.
Innovation Solution
A system and method that integrates a data indexer, search engine, and privacy protector to create and manage access-controlled search results, redacting sensitive information based on predefined criteria, while allowing authorized access and logging access reasons for data classification and control.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If restricted information is excluded from the search engine index, then employee privacy is protected, but employees are deprived from accessing useful company data they are authorized to access
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts sensitive information from search results by identifying and redacting restricted data elements. The system separates sensitive data from non-sensitive data, removing only the necessary portions while preserving the rest of the search results, thus protecting privacy without completely excluding authorized data.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent applies different access control levels to different portions of the same search result. Instead of uniformly restricting or allowing access to entire search results, the system applies redaction selectively to specific sensitive elements within the results, allowing non-sensitive portions to remain accessible while protecting only the restricted information.
2Loss of information
If restricted information is included in the search engine index, then employees can access authorized data, but unauthorized employees may be exposed to company data they are not authorized to access
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces a privacy protector component as an intermediary between the search engine and users. This mediator receives search results, applies access control rules, redacts sensitive information, and then presents the modified results to users, thus preventing unauthorized access while maintaining data accessibility.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent performs redaction of sensitive information in advance before presenting search results to users. By pre-identifying and removing restricted data elements from the search index and results, the system prevents potential unauthorized exposure while still allowing authorized employees to access the information through proper authentication mechanisms.
3Object-affected harmful factors
If a privacy protector redacts sensitive information from search results, then unauthorized access is prevented, but the complexity of the search engine system increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent divides the search engine system into distinct functional modules: a data indexer for creating the search index, a search engine for processing queries, and a privacy protector for redacting sensitive information. This segmentation allows each component to perform its specific function independently, making the overall system more manageable despite the added complexity.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent implements automated redaction mechanisms that independently identify and remove sensitive information from search results without requiring manual intervention. The privacy protector automatically applies access control rules and redacts restricted data elements, reducing the operational complexity that would arise from manual review processes.
Data Source
AI summary
A search engine system with privacy protection, including a data indexer configured to create an index of data, a search engine configured to search the index of the data in response to a query, and create a search result set including excerpts from the data, and a privacy protector configured to identify at least one data entity within at least one excerpt of the search result set that meets at least one predefined entity extraction criterion, redact the search result set by removing the data entity from the excerpt, and present the redacted search result set on a computer output device.