IBM i Application Quality Management Data is at the heart of any enterprise application and Test Data is the heart of a good test environment. Regulations, such as GDPR and HIPAA, mandate the data masking of personally identifiable information to comply with regulations. Test Data should not contain any information that can be used to identify an individual.
Our Test Data Management solution addresses issues of disk space, data verification, data confidentiality, and protracted test duration. Control and management of test data ensure that every test starts with a consistent and known data state, which is essential for effective testing.
Checking both the visible test results and the changes to the underlying data is a key principle of AQM (Application Quality Management), a task that is practically impossible to accomplish manually.
GDPR matters
The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is a European Union (EU) directive that came into effect in May 2018. It protects the privacy of EU residents and gives them control of their data, how it is used, and the right to see that data. If you are wondering what will happen in the UK after the Brexit transition period, these regulations have also been enshrined in UK law in the form of the Data Protection Act 2018.
For UK and EU citizens
The regulations apply to any personal data held in the EU irrespective of where the individual lives, and to personal data of any EU or UK citizen held outside of the EU. Access to information that can be used to identify an individual must be limited to those with a need to access that information.
Relevant data
For example, a person responsible for shipping orders needs access to a customer’s name and address, and the items that they have ordered, to fulfill the customer’s request. They do not need, nor should they have, access to that individual’s credit card details, date of birth, etc.
Accurate
It is also imperative that data relating to an individual must be accurate.
Live Data
It has generally been accepted that ‘live’ data should not be used for testing, and in some cases this has effectively been mandated (HIPAA in the US, for example). With GDPR, it is wholly inappropriate to use data that can be used to identify and individual, for testing purposes.
Pseudonymizsation
GDPR refers to Pseudonymization, a process that transforms personal data in such a way as it cannot be attributed to a real person. Pseudonymized data can “no longer be attributed to a specific data subject without the use of additional information”, according to GDPR legislation. That means that you need to limit the potential exposure and pseudonymize the data.
No excuses
It is often claimed by organizations that the Terms and Conditions of doing business with them state that personal information may be used for testing purposes. While this may be true, it does not excuse them from taking all precautions to protect that data.
Scramble, de-identify and obfuscate
The obvious thing to do is to scramble, de-identify, obfuscate, and/or mask sensitive information. This requires an analysis of the data to highlight where and how sensitive data is stored. This is likely to already have been done during preparations for GDPR. Next, you need to decide what to do to the data to remove the ability to identify a real person from it. This means choosing the most appropriate pseudonymization method.
Data sub-setting
Reducing the size of the test data, through sub-setting, will limit the potential for non-compliance; sub-setting will also make testing easier and quicker, saving time and increasing the speed at which you can get business-critical changes into production.
Retain formatting and other data properties.
Original Software’s TestBench provides code-free, easy to define mechanisms for the pseudonymization of data and uses data masking techniques to mask personally identifiable information, while still retaining the formatting and other data properties that are important for testing.
Code-free data extraction and sub-setting
TestBench provides an easy to use, code-free solution for the extraction and sub-setting of data to create test data environments. As with pseudonymization, data referential integrity is always maintained.
Focused environment
The result is a smaller, more focused test data environment with no information that can be attributed to a real individual.
A comprehensive, proven test data management, verification and unit testing solution that integrates with other solutions for total application quality.
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