A customer can control access to information about the customer stored in a database by selecting one or more policies, where each policy specifies conditions and/or rules for accessing information associated with the policy, and for each selected policy the user selects portions of the customer's information for association with the selected policy. The customer can create or specify one or more policies for accessing information. In another method, information about the customer stored in the database includes personal information about customer, including contact information for people associated with the customer, and facts about the customer, e.g., contact information for family members professionals who provide service (e.g. doctor, lawyer, banker), emergency contacts, medical information, for example blood type, allergies, medications, blood type, organ donor status.