Facilitating Entity Resolution, Keying, and Search Match Without Transmitting Personally Identifiable Information in the Clear Matching Records Without Exposing Identities

This patent describes a way for two organisations to match and combine records about the same people without sending personally identifiable information over the network in readable form. It comes from Equifax Inc., one of the largest consumer credit and data analytics companies.

The Problem

Businesses often hold valuable databases that overlap, and each could improve its data by matching against the other. The difficulty is that the same person can appear differently across databases, listed as “Gregory Jones” in one and “Greg Jones” in another, so naive matching misses real links, a task known as entity resolution or record linkage. Worse, these records contain sensitive personal information that companies treat as a protected business asset and that privacy rules restrict. Sharing whole databases to reconcile them, or sending entries across a network in the clear, risks exposing that information to interception or to a party that should not see it. Organisations need a way to resolve and enrich records while keeping the underlying personal data protected.

What This Invention Does

The patent provides an entity-resolution computing system that correlates data objects which share a common portion of account or transaction data, then assigns an entity identifier linking the objects that refer to the same person. It builds an entity-resolution data structure that ties those records together, including variant forms of the data such as alternative names or addresses, so fragmented or incomplete records become useful. Crucially, the system encrypts that data structure before transmitting it to a client system, so the matching and enrichment can happen without sending personally identifiable information in the clear. The result lets one party augment its database using another’s, with stronger cybersecurity and privacy protection than sharing raw records would allow. The filing covers the system, methods, and the keying and search-match steps involved.

Key Features

• Entity resolution. The system links records that refer to the same person even when names or addresses vary.
• Variant handling. It accounts for alternative names and addresses so fragmented records can be matched.
• Encrypted exchange. The resolved data structure is encrypted before it is transmitted to a client system.
• Privacy protection. Personal information is not sent across the network in readable form.
• Data enrichment. A client can augment and validate its database using the resolved structure.

Who Is Behind It

The applicant is Equifax Inc., a global data, analytics, and technology company headquartered in Atlanta that maintains large repositories of consumer and commercial information and provides identity and fraud services. The named inventors are Gregory Dean Jones, Marek Ludomir Cyzio, and Amy Michelle Worrell. This filing is a divisional application from an earlier related Australian application.

Why It Matters

Combining data across organisations is central to credit, fraud prevention, and marketing, but it collides directly with the duty to protect personal information. A method that resolves and shares matched records while keeping identifying data encrypted lets companies gain the benefit of linked data with less privacy and security risk. Protecting the approach in Australia supports the company’s products and commercial activity in the local market.

Related Concepts

• Record linkage – the entity-resolution task of matching records about the same person.
• Personal data – the personally identifiable information the system protects.
• Encryption – the technique used to protect data during transfer.
• Computer security – the broader cybersecurity goal of the design.
• Information privacy – the data-protection principles the method serves.

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AU 2026201964 was published in the Australian Official Journal of Patents on 2 April 2026 and is open for public inspection. Patent applications represent inventions that are sought to be protected and do not necessarily reflect commercially available products.