A method for the secure use of a personal identifier and/or financial instrument that may take place simultaneously with traditional methods of authorization for credit card, check, funds withdraw/transfer or purchase. Authorization according to the present invention may take place as follows: A) the Owner provides a pre-approval of authorization if the request meets an array of Owner-defined parameters; B) a authorization may be granted based on proximity of the Owner to the point of use; or C) the Owner provides a real time approval by smart device. In each case the invention subjects the request for authentication to a sequential verification procedure in which the request is tested against one or more pre-defined verification protocols, the deployed authentication protocol being pre-determined by the Owner and pre-selected in accordance with a user profile that was pre-programmed by the Owner.