Abstract: A system and method for secure data management and access using field level encryption and natural language understanding. The system includes a component for securely managing queries to a database by pushing the encryption and data access responsibilities to the individual fields in the database. Dynamically allocated ports are further used to separate the functions of query processing from the requestor. The system uses a standard SQL front-end but all access control, encryption, and data management are handled by the field. The actual data may not reside in the field but may be pointed to by a data pointer. The system also includes a natural language understanding component that processes queries similarly to how people process language, by maintaining context to disambiguate terms and by allowing the use of new terms by learning which known terms they may refer to and then executing the query and returning the response in natural language form expected by the user.

Abstract: A search engine for generating an improved search query, the engine comprising: input means for receiving a search request, the search request comprising N search terms; processing means arranged to formulate a search query from the received search request; output means arranged to output the search query wherein the processing means is arranged to formulate the search query by generating a plurality of search strings, each search string comprising a different combination of a subset of the N search terms.