{"id":2557,"date":"2012-08-15T13:56:53","date_gmt":"2012-08-15T13:56:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.iri.com\/blog\/?p=2557"},"modified":"2021-10-10T18:25:11","modified_gmt":"2021-10-10T22:25:11","slug":"data-masking-masking-dates-and-ages","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/beta.iri.com\/blog\/data-protection\/data-masking-masking-dates-and-ages\/","title":{"rendered":"Data Masking: Obscuring Dates and Ages"},"content":{"rendered":"

Editor’s Note: Note that this article refers to older but still supported methods for obfuscating PII elements like dates of birth and ages in IRI FieldShield. However, a newer article describing date and age value anonymization through random noise (blurring) is here<\/a>. Blurring and data generalization (bucketing) generally are covered here<\/a>, and from the IRI web site’s HIPAA section here<\/a>. Both the newer and older article below discuss masking date values for security\u00a0purposes, rather than ‘date masking’ for reformatting purposes, which is the purview of this<\/a> article.<\/em><\/p>\n

IRI also has solutions for applying consistent, fixed- or random-sized date\/time shifts<\/a> between two or more related date columns in a single row (e.g., admit, discharge, follow-up date for a patient all shifted by +\/- 10 days).\u00a0 Additional solutions exist: for date-related formatting and interval calculations, date data masking and date format masking, realistic PII \/ PHI (test data) synthesis for dates, and for scoring the risk of re-ID from quasi-identifiers like dates. Contact info@iri.com<\/a> for help with your use case.<\/em><\/p>\n

Data masking is a process that obscures or redacts\u00a0specific data elements within a data source. Data masking is sometimes also used to provide realistic test data without exposing the original\u00a0data.<\/p>\n

Companies that store sensitive information that relates to files (such as a birth date or age) have an obligation to protect that information from the public. Data masking<\/a>\u00a0software is specifically designed to protect that kind of information, and by extension, to protect businesses amid general\u00a0data breaches.<\/p>\n

IRI FieldShield<\/a>\u00a0is a uniquely powerful data-centric security tool that shields the fields in both flat files and ODBC<\/a>-connected database tables, large and small.\u00a0FieldShield obfuscates\u00a0data with multiple encryption and de-identification functions that you can choose according to your business rules.<\/p>\n


\nObscuring Date Values\u00a0with Expression Logic<\/strong><\/p>\n

The IRI Workbench GUI for FieldShield<\/a>\u00a0includes\u00a0a powerful Expression Builder<\/em>\u00a0tool that is very useful in data obfuscation. In this example, we will mask something simple like a birth date.<\/p>\n

One solution for masking a date involves incrementing or decrementing values by a fixed number of days. The increment\/decrement value can also be an environment variable to be specified within a batch process for example.<\/p>\n

Data masking with the Expression Builder will generate new dates that reflect the desired interval, and the workbench assures the new dates are valid, an important prerequisite for data masking. For example, 2\/29\/2011 would never be returned, but rather 3\/1\/2011.<\/p>\n

Take this input sample:<\/p>\n

Robert,07\/01\/1969
\nDonald,11\/21\/1966
\nPeter,05\/31\/1955
\nMary,12\/01\/1989
\nJill,03\/28\/2001<\/span><\/p>\n

The following graphic illustrates the simplicity of using the Expression Builder to increment the birth date field (bd) by 10 days. The user builds a simple expression with an increment value of 10 to produce this output:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Output sample:<\/p>\n

Robert,07\/11\/1969
\nDonald,12\/01\/1966
\nPeter,06\/10\/1955
\nMary,12\/11\/1989
\nJill,04\/07\/2001<\/span><\/p>\n

10 days were\u00a0added to each date value, obscuring the original birthday.<\/p>\n

Products like IRI FieldShield and IRI CoSort (both supported in IRI Workbench) can protect built-in (and custom-defined) time- and date-stamp formats, including ISO, American (as in this example), Japanese, and European. They also provide many\u00a0other data masking features that can be applied at the field level.<\/p>\n

For more information on IRI data masking solutions, click here<\/a>, leave a comment below, or email fieldshield@iri.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Editor’s note: Please see the editor notes above this article if you have not yet, as they mention other, newer, or more elaborate IRI solutions for working with date values.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Editor’s Note: Note that this article refers to older but still supported methods for obfuscating PII elements like dates of birth and ages in IRI FieldShield. However, a newer article describing date and age value anonymization through random noise (blurring) is here. Blurring and data generalization (bucketing) generally are covered here, and from the IRI<\/p>\n

Read More<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":2561,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,363,29],"tags":[20,14,1305,18,1407,9,1408,75,43],"class_list":["post-2557","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-data-protection","category-data-quality","category-test-data","tag-data-anonymization","tag-data-masking","tag-data-masking-tools","tag-data-privacy","tag-date-data","tag-fieldshield","tag-masking-date-columns","tag-odbc","tag-protecting-consumer-data"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nData Masking: Obscuring Dates and Ages - IRI<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/beta.iri.com\/blog\/data-protection\/data-masking-masking-dates-and-ages\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Data Masking: Obscuring Dates and Ages - IRI\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Editor’s Note: Note that this article refers to older but still supported methods for obfuscating PII elements like dates of birth and ages in IRI FieldShield. 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