Anonymization
Published 16 October 2023
This tool is built to automatically anonymize Personally Identifiable Information (PII) in your database.
Before getting into the detail, it’s worth understanding the three main operations: classify, map, and mask.
The classify and map operations both output JSON. The output of classification is the input for mapping, and the output of mapping is the input for masking.
For default behavior, there is no need to edit these JSON outputs before using them as input for the next step.
Advanced customization
For advanced use-cases, you can edit the JSON to meet your needs, but it is preferrable to provide an options file.
More information is detailed on our Anonymization configuration page.
Understanding what each command does will help you navigate the anonymization process more effectively.
To get help for each of the corresponding CLI commands, run:
rganonymize <classify | map | mask> -?
Classify
The classify operation scans your database to identify potentially sensitive information, often referred to as Personally Identifiable Information (PII). It then outputs a classification JSON file that describes which tables and columns contain such data.
Go to command-line reference for classify
command.
Map
Once you have the output from the classify operation, you can proceed to map. The map operation takes the classification output and translates it into a set of masking rules. These rules define how each identified column should be anonymized. The result is the masking JSON file.
Go to command-line reference for map
command.
Mask
Finally, the mask operation takes the masking rules and applies them to the database, effectively anonymizing the sensitive data.