A profiling service for accessing user data. The profiling service includes a
hierarchical
structure of profile objects. Each profile object contains true-data attributes
and meta-data attributes associated to the true-data attributes. Methods in the
profiling service allow a client to access user data according to meta-data attribute
settings. The true-data attributes may include the user data, or an external reference
to the user data. The profile objects may also include bindings to other profile
objects. Meta-data attributes can be identified with a prefix field in a meta-data
value field, and methods to read and write the true and meta-data attributes may
be included in the profile objects. The methods may also set an owner, an access
privilege, a group, a creation time, a update time, expiration time, a trigger
location, a binding flag, and an assurance level of true-data attributes. The profile
objects can include profile level meta-data attributes.
