US Patent 10084762 Publicly readable blockchain registry of personally identifiable information breaches

A registry is utilized to identify personally identifiable information (PII) that has been breached. The registry is a distributed database shared by multiple organizations to track which PII has been breached in other organizations. A first service provider initially receives PII and corresponding signed descriptor from a user. The PII is used to verify an identity of the user and the signed descriptor describes the type of PII that is received. The first service provider queries the registry to determine if the signed descriptor of the user has been written to the registry by a second service provider, indicating that it has been breached at a service provided by the second service provider. If the first service provider uses the breached PII, the breached PII is invalidated by the first service provider.