“The bottom line is that pseudonymization offers a level of protection against the malicious or unintended release of confidential data, but it should only be used in conjunction with strong data encryption, access controls, and other security controls to ensure that data and privacy are optimally protected.”
Data security has become a crucial tool for organizations to protect customer data and maintain the trust of their patrons. Two major tools that have emerged as the go to method in data security are pseudoanonymization and anonymization.
Pseudonymization is defined as the process of replacing personally identifiable (PII) information with artificial identifiers. This is done to ensure that the data remains identifiable and is not anonymous, for purposes such as analytics and tracking. Pseudonymization can protect PII data through methods such as masking or tokenization— by encrypting and/or substituting data so that its original values are not exposed to the outsider. Pseudonymization generally falls under the umbrella of data masking, which entails obscuring data values from a data set in order to hide sensitive information.
Anonymization, on the other hand, is a more secure method to protect data. It involves the complete removal or permanent deletion of all PII from a data set, making it impossible to associate any one particular entry with any specific individual. Anonymization encompasses a wide range of techniques, such as data encryption, data aggregation, data generalization, and data de-identification.
While there are many similarities between pseudonymization and anonymization, there are some key differences that can impact data security and privacy. According to Digital Guardian, “the bottom line is that pseudonymization offers a level of protection against the malicious or unintended release of confidential data, but it should only be used in conjunction with strong data encryption, access controls, and other security controls to ensure that data and privacy are optimally protected.”
In short, pseudonymization is a more cost effective method that can protect data from external threats while still allowing organizations to collect insights and track user activities, but it must be combined with encryption and other security protocols for maximum protection. Anonymization is a much more secure alternative, as it completely removes all PII, making it impossible to associate any one entry with any specific individual.
Whichever method you choose, it’s important to ensure that the solutions you put in place are comprehensive and tailored to meet your organization’s data security needs. Ultimately, both pseudonymization and anonymization are effective methods for keeping customer data safe, and can be used to optimize data security while still improving customer experience.
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