A biotechnology organization needs to share clinical trial data with an external analytics firm. To comply with privacy requirements, the security team must replace sensitive patient identifiers with non-sensitive placeholder values. The system must maintain an internal mapping database that allows authorized internal personnel to reverse the process when necessary, while ensuring external analysts cannot mathematically derive original identities from the placeholders alone. Which of the following privacy-enhancing techniques should the organization implement?
- TokenizationAnswer
- BAnonymization
- CDynamic data masking
- DSymmetric stream cipher encryption
Answer
Tokenization is the correct privacy control because it replaces sensitive values with random surrogate tokens backed by an internal lookup vault, enabling reversible mapping for authorized personnel without exposing algorithmic relationship vectors to third parties.
Tokenization is the correct mechanism because it substitutes sensitive values with non-sensitive identifiers (tokens) while retaining the original data in a separate, highly secured token vault database. This allows internal authorized systems to map tokens back to original entries while preventing external parties from mathematically deriving the original data.
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Key Concept
Tokenization vs. Anonymization and Masking in Data Privacy Management