System and method to protect sensitive information via distributed trust

An apparatus, comprising:

• at least one microprocessor;
• and
• memory storing instructions to instruct the at least one microprocessor to communicate with:
• a user computer providing a data item containing personally identifiable information;
• a computer system of an organization as a recipient of the data item;
• and
• multiple computer systems that are separately administrated by different organizations;
• wherein in response to the user computer providing the data item, the instructions are configured to instruct the at least one microprocessor to:
• receive a public key of the computer system as the recipient of the data item, wherein a token representing the data item is provided to the computer system as a substitute of the data item;
• encrypt the data item using the public key into a cipher text that is to be decrypted using a private key of the computer system;
• divide the cipher text into multiple portions;
• and
• store, into the multiple computer systems in connection with the token, the multiple portions of the cipher text, wherein each respective system of the multiple computer systems stores no more than a portion of the cipher text, which portion is not decryptable using the private key without a remaining portion of the cipher text that is not stored in the respective system.

A non-transitory computer storage medium storing instructions which, when executed on a computing apparatus, cause the computing apparatus to perform a method, the method comprising:

• in response to a user computer providing data item containing personally identifiable information, obtaining a public key of a computer system of an organization as a recipient of the data item;
• identifying a token representing the data item;
• providing the token to the computer system as a substitute of the data item;
• encrypting the data item using the public key into a cipher text that is to be decrypted using a private key of the computer system;
• dividing the cipher text into multiple portions;
• and
• storing, into multiple computer systems that are separately administrated by different organizations and in connection with the token, the multiple portions of the cipher text, wherein each respective system of the multiple computer systems stores no more than a portion of the cipher text, which portion is not decryptable using the private key without a remaining portion of the cipher text that is not stored in the respective system.