Using the Privacy Report to verify data protection

Required license: Enterprise

Required workspace permission: Download Privacy Report (to download the report)

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.

Ranking and description

Differential privacy

Data-free

Consistent

All data transformed

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

False

True

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

True

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

True

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

True

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

True or False

Maybe - might be only partially transformed

Data is not protected. The Passthrough generator is applied.

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.
TableMode - The table mode that is currently applied to the table.
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.
- TRUE indicates that Structural identified the column as sensitive.
- FALSE indicates that Structural did not identify the column as sensitive.
Current Sensitivity - Indicates whether the column is currently identified as sensitive.
- TRUE indicates that the column is currently identified as sensitive. This includes columns that matched a custom sensitivity rule.
- FALSE indicates 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

Structural generators protect sensitive information while maintaining the usefulness of the data for data consumers.

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:

Generator - The generator that is currently applied to the column. For information about how each generator transforms data, go to the Generator reference.
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 is Masked. Consistency decreases the protection level. If consistency is enabled, then ColumnPrivacyStatus is Masked.
- 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.
IsDifferentiallyPrivate - Indicates whether the assigned generator supports differential privacy and whether differential privacy is enabled. Differential privacy guarantees the highest level of privacy, and eliminates the ability to re-identify the data. TRUE indicates that both of these are true. FALSE indicates that either the assigned generator does not support differential privacy, or that differential privacy is not 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.
IsConsistent - Indicates whether consistency is enabled for a given column. This is also set to true if the generator is always consistent. Consistency ensures that a given input always results in the same output. It retains data utility, but provides a lower level of protection. When consistency is on, ColumnPrivacyStatus is Masked instead of Anonymized. For more information, go to Privacy Status.
ConsistencyColumn - In some cases, a column is configured to be consistent to another column. If the consistency is to another column, then ConsistencyColumn contains the name of that column.

Privacy

Privacy indicates how well the protection measures actually protect the source data.

The privacy information is included in the following columns:

ColumnPrivacyStatus - The privacy status of the column. Reflects whether a generator is applied, whether the column is sensitive, and whether the column is included in the destination database.
ColumnPrivacyRank - The privacy ranking of the column. Reflects the applied generator and the generator configuration. Does not reflect whether the column is sensitive or included.

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.

Last updated 5 months ago

Was this helpful?