Selective Transaction Obscuration in Shared Financial Accounts

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Solution Overview

Problem

Current financial systems lack the ability for users of shared accounts to discreetly obscure certain transactions from view without compromising transparency or leading to fraudulent data deletion, which is essential for personal purchases like gifts.

Innovation Solution

A method and system that selectively obscure transaction information in a graphical user interface by categorizing historical data, determining if a transaction falls outside expected types, and generating a digital statement that hides sensitive information from one user account while maintaining transparency for others, using location tracking and device characteristics to authenticate transactions.

Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles

VSEngineering Contradiction Analysis

1Loss of information

If all transactions are made transparently visible to all users of a shared account, then financial transparency and accountability are improved, but users cannot discreetly make personal purchases like gifts

Engineering Contradiction:

Improvetransaction visibilityVSAvoidprivacy control

Core Design Contradiction:

Loss of informationVSAdaptability or versatility

Solution Approach 1:

The patent segments transaction information visibility by user account, allowing different users of the same shared financial account to see different subsets of transactions. The system divides the transaction data display into multiple viewable portions based on user-specific preferences and relationships, enabling both transparency and privacy simultaneously.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #1Segmentation

Solution Approach 2:

The patent applies local quality by allowing selective obscuration of specific transaction information for specific users while maintaining full visibility for others. Each user's view of the transaction list can have different levels of detail revealed or hidden based on their individual account settings and relationships with other users.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #3Local quality

2Adaptability or versatility

If users can delete or remove transactions from the statement, then privacy for personal purchases is improved, but fraud risk and data integrity issues worsen

Engineering Contradiction:

Improveprivacy controlVSAvoiddata integrity

Core Design Contradiction:

Adaptability or versatilityVSReliability

Solution Approach 1:

The patent extracts the obscuration function from complete deletion. Instead of removing transactions from the system entirely, the system selectively hides or masks specific transaction information from specific users' views while preserving the complete transaction data in the system for audit and verification purposes.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #2Taking out (Extraction)

Solution Approach 2:

The patent introduces an intermediary layer between the transaction data and user display. This intermediary obscuration layer selectively masks transaction information based on user account settings, allowing privacy control without compromising the underlying data integrity or enabling fraudulent deletion.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #24Intermediary (Mediator)

3Loss of information

If transaction details are always fully displayed, then financial transparency is improved, but users lose the ability to surprise others with gifts or personal purchases

Engineering Contradiction:

Improvetransaction detail visibilityVSAvoidprivacy management

Core Design Contradiction:

Loss of informationVSEase of operation

Solution Approach 1:

The patent applies preliminary action by allowing users to pre-configure obscuration preferences for different users or transaction types before making purchases. Users can set up advance rules about what information should be hidden from which users, making the privacy management automatic and eliminating the need for manual intervention when making surprise purchases.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #10Preliminary action

4Measurement precision

If the system tracks location and device characteristics to determine transaction ownership, then accuracy in identifying the purchaser is improved, but processing power requirements and system complexity worsen

Engineering Contradiction:

Improvetransaction attribution accuracyVSAvoidauthentication system complexity

Core Design Contradiction:

Measurement precisionVSDevice complexity

Solution Approach 1:

The patent applies partial action by using location and device characteristic tracking selectively rather than continuously. The system activates these tracking mechanisms only when needed to resolve ambiguous transaction attribution or when configuring obscuration preferences, rather than maintaining constant monitoring that would increase processing requirements.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #16Partial or excessive action

Data Source

PatentUS11818103B2Digital statement muting and obscuration

Publication Date: 2023.11.14 CAPITAL ONE SERVICES LLC

AI summary

Systems and methods for selectively obscuring data in a digital statement are disclosed. The systems and methods can relate to multiple user accounts that access a shared account. The systems can include means to determine which account completed a transaction. Device location tracking and hardware characteristics of the devices can be used to determine which account completed the transaction. Information related to transactions that fall outside of expected spend categories can be selectively obscured on the digital statement of the non-transacting account. The information related to the transaction can be selectively viewable by non-transacting account.