System and Method for Tokenization

Abstract

A method for obscuring a value of a sensitive data element includes: (a) receiving the sensitive data element, the sensitive data element being received over a data communications network (110) at a hardware computing device (142) of a trusted tokenization service provider (140); (b) generating a token corresponding to the received sensitive data element; (c) storing the token and sensitive data element in a memory device (146) such that they are correlated with one another; (d) providing the generated token to a first party (130) that uses the token in place of the sensitive data element in a request for authorization to complete a transaction, the request being sent from the first party (130); (e) intercepting the request for authorization including the token; (f) using the token contained in the intercepted request to look-up and retrieve the correlated sensitive data element in the memory device (160); (g) replacing the token contained in the request with the sensitive data element retrieved from the memory device (160); and (h) forwarding the request containing the sensitive data element to a second party (160 and/or 162) which employs the sensitive data element to determine whether completion of the transaction should be authorized or declined.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.