Disclosed herein are systems, methods, and computer-readable storage media for authorizing third-party profile data sharing. The system receives a request to a request to share profile data held by a first person with a second person, wherein the profile data is of a third person. The system then generates a common context value based on an association between at least two of the first person, the second person, and the third person, wherein the common context value indicates how strongly the third person is connected to the first person and/or the second person. When the common context value is above a threshold, the system permits the first person to share the profile data of the third person with the second person.