Introducing PostgreSQL Anonymizer

I’ve just released today an extension called PostgreSQL Anonymizer that will mask or replace personally identifiable information (PII) or commercially sensitive data from a PostgreSQL database.

The project is open source and available here :

https://gitlab.com/daamien/postgresql_anonymizer

I strongly believe in a declarative approach of anonymization : the location of sensitive information inside database and the rules to hide this information should be declared directly using the Data Definition Language (DDL). In the age of GDPR, developpers should specify an anonymization strategy inside the table definitions, just like they specify data types, foreign keys and constraints.

This project is a prototype designed to show the power of implementing data masking directly inside PostgreSQL. Currently it is based on the COMMENT statement (probably the most unused PostgreSQL syntax) and an event trigger. In the near future, I’d like to propose a new syntax for dynamic data masking (MS SQL Server already has it)

The extension can be used to put dynamic masks on certain users or permanently modify sensitive data. Various masking techniques are available : randomization, partial scrambling, custom rules, etc.

Here’s a basic example :

Imagine a people table

=# SELECT * FROM people;
  id  |      name      |   phone
------+----------------+------------
 T800 | Schwarzenegger | 0609110911

Step 1. Activate the masking engine

=# CREATE EXTENSION IF NOT EXISTS anon CASCADE;
=# SELECT anon.mask_init();

Step 2. Declare a masked user

=# CREATE ROLE skynet;
=# COMMENT ON ROLE skynet IS 'MASKED';

Step 3. Declare the masking rules

=# COMMENT ON COLUMN people.name IS 'MASKED WITH FUNCTION anon.random_last_name()';

=# COMMENT ON COLUMN people.phone IS 'MASKED WITH FUNCTION anon.partial(phone,2,$$******$$,2)';

Step 4. Connect with the masked user

=# \! psql test -U skynet -c 'SELECT * FROM people;'
  id  |   name   |   phone
------+----------+------------
 T800 | Nunziata | 06******11

Of course this project is a work in progress. I need your feedback and ideas ! Let me know what you think of this tool, how it fits your needs and what features are missing.

You can either open an issue or send me a message at daamien@gmail.com.