A Method And System For Highly Secured Processing Of Documents In A Network
Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a method and system for highly secured processing of documents in a network. It generally relates to document processing through digitized exchange of data and images.
Background of the invention
With the ushering in of information era, digitization of the paper-based business documents has grown rapidly. Paper-intensive industries such as Insurance and Banking need to regularly convert a large number of paper documents into respective scanned form. The processing of information contained in such scanned business documents are either done in-house or if the volume is huge, it is outsourced.
However, this information can be misused. In the recent past, a number of such cases have hit the headlines, where employees at outsourced location had gathered sensitive information like credit card number, name, transaction details, etc. and sold this information. Therefore, all such sensitive information present on a business document is at risk. For example, a signature present on the image of a check can be copied and potentially used to wreck havoc on the unassuming customer, whose other details such as name and account number may also be present on the check.
Consumer privacy concerns date back to the first commercial couriers and bankers, who in every culture took strong measures to protect customer privacy, but also in every culture tended to be subject to very harsh punitive measuies for failures to keep a customer's information private.
The data gathering required for billing began to become an obvious privacy risk. Through the 1990s the proliferation of mobile telecom (which typically bills every call), the introduction of customer relationship management and the use of the Internet by the public in all developed nations, brought the situation to a head, and most countries had to implement strong consumer privacy laws, usually over the objections of business.

Accordingly a method and system is needed that ensures customer privacy and that the information with the various business process outsourcing firms remains confidential.
Objects and Summary of the Invention
It is an object of the instant invention to obviate the above drawbacks and provide a method and system for securely processing documents.
It is another object of the instant invention to provide complete consumer privacy.
It is yet another object of the instant application to securely process business documents.
A method for highly secured processing of documents in a network comprising capturing image of the document using an image capturing device, transmitting said captured image to an application server, defining data zones in said image at the application server, transmitting the defined data zone images to different client workstations, extracting data from the data zones at the worknodes, transmitting the data to the application server, and consolidating the data at the server in a centralised database.
A system for highly secured processing of documents in a network comprising means for capturing image of said document, means fortransmistting said image to an application server, means for defining and cutting data zones in the document image, means for adding identfiers to the data zone images, means for extracting data from said zone images, and means for entering the extracted data in the system.
Brief description of accompanying drawings
Figure 1 describes the system implementing the instant invention. Figure 2 describes the method of the instant invention.

Detailed description of the instant invention
Subscribers' information including Bank account numbers, Credit card numbers, Date of birth, PAN number, Address, Designation, Phone numbers, etc. are all saved in a database with the authorities. Though the information is mostly encrypted and often just a password does not suffice, it needs to be combined with another number, which is with the subscriber, or is calculated in real time and destroyed, still the security of the database is often at risk. Therefore, the digital information might still be secured, however, when it comes to information appearing on physical documents such as forms, checks and medical transcripts, it is as secure as the intentions of the person handling it. This information can be stolen at the time of data entry i.e. the processing of documents by simply noting it down and used later for committing crime and frauds. There is still no method, which could guarantee secure processing of information present on physical documents.
The instant invention is used for securely processing business documents such as checks, medical transcripts, insurance claims, LCs, etc., which bear sensitive information. The system facilitates secured processing of such documents.
Figure 1 describes the system for implementing the instant invention. The image of the paper-based business instrument (10) is captured using any of the image capturing devices (A) at the branch office. 'Such devices may include camera, scanner, etc. The scanned image (11) is transmitted to an application server (B) through a transmitting means at the branch office. It may be transmitted through network means.
The application server comprises means to define data zones in the business instrument using the predefined templates according to the type of document to be processed.
In one embodiment, the system works for cheques. In such cases, the zones that would be defined are shown in the figure i.e. 12.1, 12.2 and 12.3. Similarly, zones are already defined according to the document to be processed. The position and size of zones are also predefined. This definition is rule based.
These zones are then cut from the original document and individual zone images sent to various data entry operators for entry in their system. The forwarding of the data zones to the operators through a rule-based routing means (13).

Splitting of business documents into a number of zones would ensure that the security of the document is not compromised. Each zone image, cut from the business instrument, contains some identifiers.
In an embodiment, the data zone images include two identifiers:
Zone identifier that identifies the zone from which the zone image has been cut.
In an embodiment, this identifier may define that the zone is cheque number or
account number.
Document identifier used to identify the business instrument, from which the zone
image has been cut.
In an embodiment, the identifiers are embedded in the zone image as a digital watermark. The digital watermark is invisible, encrypted and embedded into the image. The digital watermark is used to ensure there is no manipulation/corruption of data originally present on the image. Any tampering of the data present on the image is caught by comparing it against the data obtained from the digital watermark.
The zone image along with the identifiers associated with each zone image is sent for processing. The various zone images of one document are sent to different client workstations for entry in the system.
In one embodiment, the images are sent to the same client workstation but in a random order.
At the client workstation the data is extracted from the images. This is done by the operators at the workstation.
In one embodiment, data extraction is an automated process.
The extracted data is entered through an interactive user interface such as Forms and sent from the client workstations to the application server The data extracted from the digital watermark along with the data extracted from the zone image is combined and sent to the application server in an encrypted form, along with the zone image. The data can be sent through network means.
The application server has a data set aggregation means (14), which, on the basis of identifiers attached to the zone image, aggregates the data of one document. This data (15) is entered into a consolidated database at the server as one record.

Splitting of business document into a number of zones would ensure that the security of the document is not compromised. The individual zone images cut from a number of business documents are sent randomly to the client workstations. If sent to more than one workstation, no single operator will have all the information for a particular business document to misuse it. If sent to a single workstation, the random order of arrival of zone images for various documents ensures the operator cannot figure out any link between various zone images. For example, consider the case of checks with three different zones: Name, Amount and Signature. When these three different zone images are sent to three different users to be processed, no single user will have access to the information in all the zones, and therefore, would not be able to associate individual information pieces to reconstruct the complete check information. When a single operator is sent all zone images, he might first receive the zone image for Name for check A, Signature for check B and Amount for check C. This scenario, if extrapolated to thousands of checks, would ensure the operator couldn't reconstruct the complete information for a single check.
In one embodiment, the data zone images are cut from the business documents and saved in a storage device. These images also contain identifiers as described above. They are saved in random order. The images from the same document are not saved together. This is done to take care that the user at the client workstation is not able to collate all the data from the same document and misuse it.
The device is sent to the client workstations. The user extracts the data. The extracted data is then again stored in a storage device and sent back to the application server manually. This helps maintain the security in the absence of networking environment.
Figure 2 is a flow diagram which describes the steps of the instant invention.
The details of documents such as bills, statements, medical trascripts. policies, deeds have to maintained with the authorities (20). Accordingly organizations outsource this activity for data entry in database, or it can be done inhouse. To avoid a single user getting access to all the information and misusing it, the instant invention takes care that the user cannot access the information.
An image of the document is first captured (21). The image is then sent to an application server for further processing (22).

The application server has means to define data zones in the document. For instance, in a bill the data zones that could be defined are bill no., bill amout, customer details, etc. It has prestored templates for zones in a particular type of document. With the help of such templates the zones are defined in the image (23).
The images from this zone is cut, added with identifiers and sent to various client workstations for further processing (24).
The identifiers help identify which zone is the image from and to which document it belongs to.
The data entry at the client workstations can be in house or outsourced. Either way, it can be sent to a single user or multiple users. If sent to multiple users, the different zone images are received by different users, thus the security of the document is manintained. If sent to a single user, it is taken care that the zone image is sent randomly (25a, 25b).
At the client workstation, the data is extracted from the image and entered in a user interface. This is then transmitted back to the application server (26). Data from various client workstations or from same client workstation is consolidated on the basis of identifiers and stored in a centralized database at the application server (27).
The database stores the information in the encrypted form and cannot be accessed through client workstations.
In one embodiment, the data zone images are cut from the business documents and saved in a storage device. These images also contain identifiers as described above. They are saved in random order. The images from the same document are not saved together. This is done to take care that the user at the client workstation is not able to collate all the data from the same document and misuse it.
The device is sent to the client workstations. The user extracts the cata. The extracted data is then again stored in a storage device and sent back to the application server manually. This helps maintain the security in the absence of networking environment.

It will readily be appreciated by those skilled in the art that the present invention is not limited to the specific embodiments shown herein. Thus variations may be made within the scope and spirit of the accompanying claims without sacrificing the principal advantages of the invention.

We Claim:
1. A method for highly secured processing of documents in a network comprising:
- capturing image of the document using an image capturing device (4),
- Transmitting said captured image (11) to an application server (B),
- defining data zones in said image (11) at the application server (B),
- transmitting the defined data zone images to at least one client workstation,
- extracting data (15) from the data zones at the worknodes,
- transmitting the data (15) to the application server (B), and
- consolidating the data (15) at the server (B) in a centralised database.

2. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein said data zones are defined using templates stored at said application server.
3. The method as claimed in claim 2, wherein defining of said data zones is automated.
4. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein said data zone images include identifiers.
5. The method as claimed in claim 4, wherein said identifiers include digital watermarks, said watermarks being embedded in the image.
6. The method as claimed in claim 5, wherein said digital watermarks are encrypted and invisible.
7. The method as claimed in claim 4, wherein said identifiers include:

- zone identifiers for identifying the data zone, and
- document identifiers for identifying the document.

8. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein said identifiers are transmitted along with the data zone images to the client workstation.
9. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein operators at said client workstation enters the extracted data through an interactive user interface for transmitting said data to application server.
10. The method as claimed in claim lm wherein said consolidation of data includes data extracted from zone images, identifiers extracted from the digital watermark and the zone image.
11. The method as claimed in claimel, wherein said defined zone images are sent to one client workstation.
12. The method as claimed in claim 11, wherein said defined data zone images are sent to said one client workstation in a random order for highly secured processing of documents.
13. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein said defined data zone images are stored in a storage device and said storage device is sent to the client workstations.
14. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein said extracted data is stored in a storage device and said storage device sent to said application server.
15. A system for highly secured processing of documents in a network comprising:

- means (A) for capturing image of said document,
- means for transmitting said image (11) to an application server (B),
- means for defining and cutting data zones in the document image (12.1, 12.2, 12.3),

- means for adding identifiers to the data zone images,
- means for extracting data from said zone images, and
- means for entering (14) the extracted data in the system.
16. The system as claimed in claim 15, wherein said means for entering extracted data includes an interactive user interface.