Glossary

Tokenization

Replacing a sensitive value, such as a card number, with a surrogate token that cannot be reversed without access to a protected vault or key. Systems that hold only tokens can reduce the scope of PCI DSS, but the tokenization service and every system that can detokenize become critical.

Defined in: PCI SSC: Tokenization Guidelines

Covered in

Guide

Tokenization, pseudonymization and privacy transformations: choose deliberately

Choose between vault tokens, keyed pseudonyms, format-preserving encryption, aggregation and differential privacy by the joins, reversibility and leakage each allows, and test re-identification on the data you release.