Bit-Twiddling
Another reversible masking function
Challenges
You must remove the personally identifiable characteristics from the data. At the same time, this data must be pseudonymized so that it can flow securely through different departments and be re-identified if necessary.
De-identified data should also resemble its original format. Its length, data type, or even a realistic-looking but different value is needed for ongoing operations and testing. In the Field encryption This goal will not be achieved if the length of the ciphertext exceeds the original field length and the realism of the data is lost.
The format-preserving encryption (FPE) or format-preserving encryption functions can be desirable options, even if they are sometimes redundant or time-consuming.
Solutions
The IRI FieldShield-Data masking product (as well as the IRI Voracity-data management platform (which includes FieldShield and DarkShield) has many features for static data masking, including the ability to develop custom functions. Built-in functions for de-identifying ASCII data include a routine for character-level replacement (formerly known as the ASCII De-ID and Re-ID function).
You can use this less secure data encryption feature when speed is critical and you simply want to obfuscate column values in a unique and reversible way.
Like the other field-level de-identification techniques in FieldShield, this function can be applied to less sensitive, but perhaps quasi-identifying data to help you comply with data privacy regulations while keeping your non-sensitive data available for further processing. The use of this function, like all others, will be recorded in FieldShield's XML audit log to ensure regulatory compliance.
See the other features listed in this section if you are looking for other ways to identify data. See the HIPAA Page for PHI de-identification and the possibilities for dynamic data masking.
If you need secure, realistic test data, use FieldShield-compatible IRI RowGen-software in the IRI Data Protection Suite, to create test databases, files, and report targets.
Blog links
Other resources