Data watermarking and fingerprinting system and method

A system for applying fingerprinting/watermarking of consumer data, and analyzing "wild files" of consumer data to assign a guilt score for a particular party who may have leaked the data, allows the owner of data sources ("Data Owners") to identify and assert ownership of textual data that has been distributed outside of their firewall in the clear (i.e., without encryption), either intentionally or unintentionally, and assign guilt to parties misusing the data. The system can be used by Data Owners who transmit, lease, or sell data to individuals or organizations ("Trusted Third Parties" or "TTPs") to recognize and assert ownership of their data in the case where one or more TTPs leaks the data (the leaked file is defined as a "Leaked Subset") into the hands of others ("Bad Actors") who either knowingly or unknowingly use the data illegally.