A data processing method and network for collecting, storing, and providing user profile data. The network comprises a number of persona agents, interconnected to a hub. The persona agents and the hub are stored within the data communications network. Each persona agent is associated with a user of the data communications network, and is operable to collect observational data from an application being executed by the user, as well to receive queries for profile data from the application and to respond to the queries with context-based profile data.