TRANSMISSION OF ANONYMOUS INFORMATION THROUGH A COMMUNICATION NETWORK

摘要

A system that enables anonymous data collection from Respondents, such as over the Internet using public key technologies, where the anonymity and authenticity of Respondents is provided by a trusted mediation service. The invention provides a simple and secure solution that allows authentication of research Respondents while maintaining their anonymity. The Collector cannot link Respondent's real identification and their responses, and a Mediator provides a communication service but has no access to the content of information exchanged between the Respondents and the Collector. According to one aspect of the invention, a Collector requests a list of anonymous Ids from the Mediator. The Mediator then generates a list of anonymous tokens which can then be used by the Respondents when they communicate with the Collector through the Mediator.