A reasoning apparatus (101) is arranged to determine device locations for user profile elements of a distributed user profile. A user profile processor (201) receives a user profile which comprises a plurality of user profile elements. Each user profile element furthermore comprises associated metadata. The apparatus (101) also comprises a device profile receiver (203) that receives device profiles for a plurality of devices. A device location processor (205) proceeds to determine device locations for the user profile elements in response to the associated metadata and the device profiles. Specifically, a user profile element may be assigned to a specific device if the device profile for that device matches the metadata for the user profile element. The reasoning apparatus (101) may furthermore comprise a user profile element synchroniser (207) which synchronises the user profile elements with the appropriate devices.