Systems and methods for providing an integrated identifier

#This disclosure generally relates to data processing, and more particularly to methods and systems for providing an integrated identifier for accessing differently regulated data.

#In the United States, the use of personal, credit, and financial data of consumers is regulated by at least the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) and the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLB). For example, under the FCRA, credit data may be used under certain permissible purposes, such as for account review purposes when a consumer already has an established account with a financial institution. In the healthcare field, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) governs the use of patient data. Organizations often need to manage customer or patient data including different types of data governed by different legal requirements, and thus face the challenge of complying with those requirements in the management of differently regulated data. The different legal requirements often lead to the use of parallel and sometimes duplicative data management systems and methods that increase the transfer of private or sensitive data across systems and networks. Besides increasing costs, the increased transfer also leads to increased security risks and exposes those organizations to liability for data privacy breaches.

#Embodiments described herein provide data management systems and methods for accessing, providing, and/or managing differently regulated data. The data management systems and methods may streamline the mechanism by which data users access both regulated and non-regulated data through the use of one or more integrated identifiers. An identifier may be an alphanumeric string and/or a database record key. It may be encrypted or in clear text. In one or more embodiments an identifier does not contain any personally identifiable information. Other embodiments include systems and methods that allow for the integration of a Customer Data Integration (CDI) solution with an account review service through the use of one or more integrated identifiers.

#Specific embodiments will now be described with reference to the following drawings:

#FIG. 1 is a block diagram of an integrated identifier reconciliation system according to one embodiment; and

#FIG. 2A is a block diagram showing a system for providing and utilizing integrated identifiers according to one embodiment;

#The terminology used in the description presented herein is not intended to be interpreted in any limited or restrictive manner, simply because it is being utilized in conjunction with a detailed description of certain specific embodiments of the invention. Furthermore, embodiments of the invention may include several novel features, no single one of which is solely responsible for its desirable attributes or which is essential to practicing the inventions described herein.

#Various companies store information about their customers in a collection of systems and databases. Customer data integration (“CDI”) solutions, such as Experian's Truvue solution, synchronize records across multiple business units and databases to deliver a more complete, consistent and accurate view of customers over time. One advantage of a CDI solution may be that it can integrate thousands of reliable and verifiable data sources (collectively referred to as “customer data”) into one or more large intelligent reference databases. With links to thousands of contributors of reliable and verifiable data, information may be updated continually. When combined with vast name and address history stored by a credit bureau, these links may give a data user entity that uses the CDI the ability to accurately identify and link comprehensive data to their customers.

#Many data users, such as credit card issuers, banks, utility companies, and other commercial entities, for example, need to manage customer data. In addition, these data users often access regulated data such as credit data, sometimes in conjunction with one or more access operations involving non-regulated customer data. For example, a card issuer may wish to use non-regulated customer data for marketing purposes and regulated credit data for processing new credit applications. One difficulty these data users encounter is the divergent methods of access that are needed due to the different regulations restricting the use of certain data. Other data users in fields such as healthcare may also face the same challenge in their data management practices. For example, a healthcare provider or an insurer may face one set of legal requirements with regard to patient data (e.g., HIPPA) and another set of requirements with regard to the use of credit data related to those patients (e.g., FCRA). For example, a pharmacy may need to manage three types of regulated data: medical data, insurance data, and credit data.