US 11,869,005 B2
System and method linking to accounts using credential-less authentication
William Hockey, San Francisco, CA (US); Nick Agin, San Francisco, CA (US); Baker Shogry, San Francisco, CA (US); Samir Naik, San Francisco, CA (US); and Jonathan Chao, San Francisco, CA (US)
Assigned to Plaid Inc., San Francisco, CA (US)
Filed by Plaid Inc., San Francisco, CA (US)
Filed on Sep. 17, 2020, as Appl. No. 17/024,332.
Claims priority of provisional application 62/901,266, filed on Sep. 17, 2019.
Prior Publication US 2021/0081947 A1, Mar. 18, 2021
Int. Cl. G06Q 20/40 (2012.01); H04L 9/40 (2022.01)
CPC G06Q 20/4014 (2013.01) [H04L 63/0838 (2013.01)] 20 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. A computer-implemented method for digital authentication with an external account service comprising:
receiving, by a device of an account linking computing service, a request to establish an account link for a first application of a plurality of applications,
wherein the account linking computing service provides a proxy service that simulates the plurality of applications and facilitates interaction between the plurality of applications and one or more external account services including the external account service;
establishing, by the device, the account link to a user account of the external account service using user credentials collected through an application client of a first application context;
receiving, by the device, user identifying information of the first application context and storing the user identifying information in association with the account link;
receiving, by the device, user identifying information of a second application context for a second application of the plurality of applications, wherein the second application is an independent application from the first application operable on a computing device;
searching and identifying, by the device, a candidate account link using the user identifying information of the second application context;
verifying, by the device, eligibility for access to the account link based on verification of association of the user identifying information of the second application context and the user identifying information of the first application context;
permitting, by the device and upon successful verification of eligibility, access to the account link in the second application context without collecting the user credentials of the user account; and
establishing, by the device and in response to failing to verify eligibility, the account link to the user account using user credentials collected via the application client of the second application context.