Using the Privacy Report to verify data protection
About the Privacy Report
In Tonic Structural, data privacy measures how well data is protected based on the applied generator and the generator configuration.
The Privacy Report captures details about the level of data protection for the data in a workspace.
As you configure the data protection, you can use a preview Privacy Report as a checkpoint to review the generators that you applied or to look for at-risk data.
You can export the preview from Structural before you run a generation, to increase your confidence or to confirm that the de-identification configuration is complete.
Every time you run a data generation job, Structural creates a Privacy Report to reflect the protection level at the time that the job ran.
The Privacy Report consists of the following:
A .csv list of columns that includes column properties, privacy status, and privacy ranking.
A set of charts that summarizes the privacy rankings for the columns.
Privacy status and privacy ranking
The Privacy Report includes the privacy status and the privacy ranking.
Privacy status
The privacy status reflects:
Whether a column is sensitive.
Whether a generator other than Passthrough is applied.
Whether the column is included in the destination data.
The possible values for privacy status are:
At-Risk - The column is sensitive, but has Passthrough as the assigned generator.
Protected - The column has a generator other than Passthrough assigned. A protected column could be either sensitive or not sensitive.
Non-Sensitive - The column is not sensitive, and has Passthrough as the assigned generator.
Not Included - The column is not included in the destination database. For example, for a truncated table, the columns are not included.
Privacy ranking
Privacy ranking indicates the level of protection for a column based on the assigned generator and the generator configuration. Privacy ranking does not consider whether the column is sensitive or not sensitive.
The privacy ranking for a column can be a number from 1 to 6. 1 indicates the highest level of data privacy, and 6 the lowest level.
The ranking is based on the following attributes:
Whether the generator uses differential privacy.
Whether the generator is data-free.
Whether the generator has consistency enabled.
Whether the generator transforms all of the data in the column.
The following table describes the rankings, and shows how generator attributes correspond to the rankings.
1
The generator is data-free and irreversible.
There is no way to uncover information about the original data from the output data.
Examples: Random Boolean, Random Integer, Constant, Null
True
True
False
True
2
Uses the original data in a way that obscures the original data points.
Changing individual data points in the original data does not change the output data.
However, the shape of the output data can provide information about the input data.
Examples: Continuous and Categorical generators, when set to differentially private
True
False
False
True
3
Uses the underlying data in a way that cannot be reversed, but can identify values that exist in the original data.
Example: Categorical generator, when not set to differentially private
False
False
False
True
4
Data is transformed in a secure way but with consistent values, which can introduce a slight risk.
For example, someone who knows the source data and the frequency of the source values might be able to connect the source and destination values.
Examples: Name generator with consistency, Integer Key generator with consistency
False
False
True
True
5
Data might be unprotected.
Primarily applies to generators that have sub-fields, where there is always a chance that the data is not protected.
Examples: HTML Mask, JSON Mask, Regex Mask, XML Mask
False
False
True or False
Maybe - might be only partially transformed
6
Data is not protected. The Passthrough generator is applied.
False
False
Not applicable
False
Privacy Report .csv file content
The Privacy Report .csv file contains summary statistics and column level details. The table is also included in the downloadable PDF that contains the privacy ranking charts.
Here is a stylized version of the report that shows the column groupings:
The fields for each row in the Privacy Report fall into the following categories.
Schema
The Privacy Report includes all of the schema detail that is viewable in the Structural application, such as in Database View and Table View. The schema in the source matches the destination.
The schema information is contained in the following columns:
Schema - Schema name from the source database.
Table - Table name from the source database.
Column - Column name from the source database.
DataType - Data type that is detected in the source database.
Data sensitivity
Data sensitivity reflects attributes such as:
Whether the data includes personally identifiable information (PII).
Whether the data is regulated by law.
Whether the data is business confidential.
It affects decisions on how to protect the data.
During the sensitivity scan, Structural identifies suspected sensitive columns. You can also manually indicate that a column is sensitive or not sensitive.
The data sensitivity information is contained in the following columns:
Tonic Detected Sensitivity - Indicates whether the Structural sensitivity scan identified the column as sensitive. This does not include columns identified by a custom sensitivity rule.
TRUEindicates that Structural identified the column as sensitive.FALSEindicates that Structural did not identify the column as sensitive.
Current Sensitivity - Indicates whether the column is currently identified as sensitive.
TRUEindicates that the column is currently identified as sensitive. This includes columns that matched a custom sensitivity rule.FALSEindicates that the column is currently identified as not sensitive.
Except for columns that a custom sensitivity rule detected, if you did not change the sensitivity manually, then Current Sensitivity matches Tonic Detected Sensitivity.
SensitiveType - For columns that Structural identifies as sensitive, the detected sensitivity type. For example, Structural detects a column of type Address that might be sensitive. For fields that a custom sensitivity rule detected, SensitiveType is Custom. For columns that you manually identify as sensitive, SensitiveType is Manual.
CustomSensitivityType - For columns that a custom sensitivity rule detected, contains the name of the custom sensitivity rule.
Protection
The protection section of the Privacy Report provides key details about how the masking transformations protect the data.
The protection information is contained in the following columns:
ProtectionType - Indicates the level of protection that is provided by the assigned generator and generator configuration. The possible protection type values are:
Masked - Applied to columns that have a generator other than Passthrough assigned. The selected generator provides some protection against viewing source data. If both IsDifferentiallyPrivate and IsDataFree are
FALSE, then ColumnPrivacyStatus isMasked. Consistency decreases the protection level. If consistency is enabled, then ColumnPrivacyStatus isMasked.Anonymized - Applied to columns for which the assigned generators and the generator configuration are guaranteed against reverse engineering. The assigned generator either uses differential privacy, or is considered data-free, where the output data is completely unlinked from the source data. The assigned generator does not have consistency enabled.
IsDataFree - Indicates whether the assigned generator uses the underlying data. If the output data is completely unlinked to the source data, the generator is considered data-free, with a high degree of protection.
Privacy
Privacy indicates how well the protection measures actually protect the source data.
The privacy information is included in the following columns:
Privacy Report privacy ranking charts
The Privacy Report privacy ranking charts summarize the privacy ranking values for the workspace data.
The privacy ranking charts are provided in a downloadable PDF file. The file also includes the Privacy Report table, which contains the same content as the .csv file.
The first page of the file contains definitions of the privacy ranking values.
The PDF then contains two sets of charts:
The first set of charts summarizes the privacy ranking values for all columns. It includes all of the privacy rankings from 1-6.
The second set of charts summarizes the privacy ranking values for columns that have an assigned generator. It does not include privacy ranking 6, which is assigned to columns that do not have an assigned generator.
Each set of charts contains:
A donut chart that displays the number of columns and the relative number of columns with each privacy ranking.
A bar chart that shows the number of columns with each privacy ranking.
For each privacy ranking, a summary that includes:
The percentage of columns with that ranking.
The number of columns with that ranking.
Viewing privacy status information on the job details view
On the job details view, the Privacy Report tab summarizes the privacy status for the columns that are included in the destination data. It does not reflect columns that were excluded, such as columns in truncated tables.
It shows the number of columns that are At-Risk, Protected, and Not Sensitive.
Downloading a Privacy Report file
Downloading a report based on the current configuration
From Privacy Hub and the workspace download menu, you can download a Privacy Report .csv or PDF file that reflects the current workspace configuration.
These reports indicate how well your data would be protected if you generated data with that configuration.
From the workspace management view, click the download icon, then:
To download the Privacy Report PDF file, click Download Privacy Report PDF.
To download the Privacy Report .csv file, click Download Privacy Report CSV.
From Privacy Hub, click Reports and Logs, then:
To download the Privacy Report .csv file, click Privacy Report CSV.
To download the Privacy Report PDF file, click Privacy Report PDF.
Downloading a report for a specific data generation job
From the job details view for a data generation job, you can download a Privacy Report .csv or PDF file that reflects the workspace configuration at the time of data generation.
These reports indicate how well your data was protected by that configuration.
On the job details view, to display the download options, click Reports and Logs.
In the menu:
To download the Privacy Report .csv file, click Privacy Report CSV.
To download the Privacy Report PDF file, click Privacy Report PDF.
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