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Difficulty: MediumData Governance, Classification, and Privacy Controls

A specialized genomic research organization is implementing data protection controls across its analytical data pipeline. Security policies require that direct patient identifiers, such as names and social security numbers, be replaced with random alphanumeric values in testing environments, while retaining the technical ability to reverse the process back to original records via an encrypted central vault accessible only to authorized compliance personnel. Which of the following privacy-enhancing techniques best satisfies this operational requirement?

  1. TokenizationAnswer
  2. B
    Data anonymization
  3. C
    Data masking
  4. D
    Cryptographic hashing

Answer

Tokenization is the correct control because it replaces sensitive elements with surrogate values that can be reversed using a secure mapping vault.
Tokenization replaces sensitive sensitive data elements with surrogate values (tokens) that have no intrinsic or exploitable meaning. The mapping back to the original sensitive data is securely stored in a centralized token vault accessible only under strict authorization controls.

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Analyze the scenario requirements
Identified the need to substitute identifiers with surrogate values while maintaining reversible access via a central secure lookup database/vault.
The organization needs to protect real PII in test environments but retain mapping capability for authorized compliance workflows.
2
Evaluate privacy-enhancing technology characteristics
Tokenization generates random surrogate tokens tied to a secure lookup vault, matching the exact requirement.
Unlike anonymization, tokenization preserves reversibility when authorized.

Key Concept

Privacy-Enhancing Technologies (Tokenization vs. Anonymization vs. Masking)
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Topics

Data Governance, Classification, and Privacy Controls

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