An agent computer system, acting on behalf of the user, provides the personal information to various wide area network sites for conducting online transactions. A user has a secure device with a built-in device identifier. A backup center has a computer system to be coupled to the secure device during backup of the personal information. The personal information is encrypted with a unique user ID as a key. The user ID is entered by the user. The user ID is irreversibly encrypted to a unique irreversibly encrypted user identifier. The secure device includes data executable to establish a new account, renew an old account, and transmission of the encrypted information along with the unique device identifier and the unique irreversibly encrypted user identifier to the backup center. The unique device identifier and the unique irreversibly encrypted user identifier are used for indexing the storage of the encrypted information.