Zone Policy Administration for Entity Tracking and Privacy
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current methods for monitoring and tracking entities within specific zones or proximity to other entities are labor-intensive and costly, particularly in scenarios involving parole monitoring, child safety, and sensitive material tracking, lacking efficient automation.
Innovation Solution
An entity tracking and zone policy administration system that defines zones, manages entities, and creates policies with rules, using sensors and event objects to automate tracking and ensure privacy, allowing for real-time notifications and compliance monitoring.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of operation
If manual monitoring methods are used to track entities and enforce zone policies, then flexibility and adaptability in handling diverse scenarios are maintained, but labor intensity and operational costs increase significantly
Solution Approach 1:
The system enables self-service monitoring where the tracking system automatically monitors entities, enforces zone policies, and generates notifications without requiring manual human intervention. The automated system serves itself by continuously tracking managed entities, evaluating zone policy rules, and triggering appropriate actions based on predefined criteria.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent replaces manual mechanical monitoring operations with an automated electronic tracking system. Instead of human operators manually tracking and monitoring entities, the system uses electronic sensors, GPS tracking, and automated software to perform monitoring functions, thereby eliminating labor-intensive manual efforts while maintaining comprehensive surveillance capabilities.
2Productivity
If automated tracking systems are implemented to reduce manual effort, then monitoring efficiency and productivity improve, but system complexity and infrastructure requirements increase
Solution Approach 1:
The tracking system is designed with multi-functionality to handle diverse monitoring scenarios through a single unified platform. It can track various types of entities (people, vehicles, objects), enforce different zone policies, generate multiple types of notifications, and integrate with various communication channels, thereby reducing the need for multiple separate systems and minimizing overall complexity.
Solution Approach 2:
The system is segmented into modular functional components including entity tracking modules, zone policy evaluation modules, notification generation modules, and privacy policy enforcement modules. This segmentation allows each component to be independently developed, maintained, and scaled, reducing overall system complexity while maintaining high productivity.
3Reliability
If comprehensive tracking data is collected to ensure accurate zone policy enforcement, then monitoring reliability and rule compliance improve, but privacy concerns and data protection requirements increase
Solution Approach 1:
The system applies different data collection and processing qualities to different contexts and zones. Privacy policies are enforced locally for each managed entity and zone combination, allowing the system to collect comprehensive data where needed for reliable policy enforcement while protecting sensitive information through localized privacy controls and selective data retention.
Solution Approach 2:
Privacy policies act as intermediaries between comprehensive tracking data collection and actual data access. The system collects detailed tracking data for reliable zone policy enforcement, but privacy policies mediate access to this data, ensuring that sensitive information is protected while still allowing necessary data to be used for monitoring and compliance verification.
Data Source
AI summary
The present invention includes entity tracking, privacy assurance, and zone policy administration technologies allowing for the creation of zone policies, including the definition of zones and managed entities, the zone policies including rules that apply to the managed entities within or in relation to the zones, and privacy policies assuring privacy of sensitive data. The technologies also provide for the definition of sensors, rule event objects, and default event objects, and for the establishment of associations between rules and managed entities, sensors, and rule event objects so as to create zone policies. Event objects may generate zone policy events or actions upon compliance with or violation of various rules of zone policy. Managed entities are defined as entities associated with mobile devices capable of location tracking and communication with zone policy servers. Entities may be persons, vehicles, animals, or any other object for which tracking and zone policy administration is of value. Zone policy may include privacy policy that may restrict access to or set access conditions for data or information. Privacy policies may be used to ensure individual managed entities and their data remain anonymous to a desired degree and that sensitive data is appropriately protected.