Data tokenization and data encryption are two major words you would often come across in the world of data security. Is data tokenization the same as data encryption? What are the differences if they are not the same? Is there any sort of similarity between them? These questions will be answered in this article.
What is Data Tokenization?
Tokenization is the process of converting a meaningful piece of data, examples of such is an account number, into a random string of variables usually called a token that has no specific meaningful value on its own if breached. Tokens are references to the original data, but cannot be used to guess what those values are.
What Is Data Encryption?
Data encryption is the process of changing the format of certain valuables (text messages, emails, etc) from readable format to unreadable formats usually called “Cipher texts “ through the use of algorithms. Such ciphertexts can be accessed with the use of an encryption key.
Frequent questions about data tokenization vs data encryption.
- Is data tokenization the same as data encryption?
Answer: No, they are different processes.
- What are the similarities between data tokenization and Data encryption?
Answer: They are both used for data security.
What are the differences between data tokenization and data encryption?
- Process of generation: Data tokenization is usually a randomly generated set of variables while data encryption is usually generated by issuing a mathematical algorithm.
- Scalability: with Data tokenization, it becomes increasingly hard to keep up when the data to be processed is large while data encryption can scale easily.
- Used cases: Data tokenization is usually used for structured data such as social security number, card number while data encryption can be used for both structured and instructed data.
- Data transfer: In data tokenization, the data cannot leave the organization while in data encryption the data can leave the organization but in an encrypted format. Which makes it easy to exchange data with third parties that have the encryption key.
Data tokenization and Data encryption are commonly used for data security and their use depends on the type and quantity of data in question.
Leave a Reply