PII categories
| Tier | Examples | Handling |
|---|---|---|
| PII | Name, email, IP | Encrypt, access control, audit |
| Sensitive | SSN, health, financial | Stronger encryption, fewer eyes |
| Non-PII | Aggregated metrics | Standard controls |
Minimization — collect only what you need; delete when done.
Tokenization vs encryption
- Tokenization — replace PAN with token; vault holds mapping (payments)
- Encryption — reversible with key; you manage rotation
Column-level access
Warehouse: mask email for analysts; full for support role.
Data Engineering → Governance — lineage and contracts; this topic — what to classify.
Logging redaction
Never log: passwords, tokens, full credit card, session cookies.
Structured logs with explicit allowlist of fields.
DE pipeline concerns
- Bronze may have raw PII; gold anonymized for analytics
- Data minimization in exports to partners
- Access logs on who queried PII tables
Backend API concerns
- Don't return PII in list endpoints if UI doesn't need it
- Pagination leaks — same AuthZ on every page
Cross-reference: Databases — encryption at rest; Observability — log pipeline PII scrubbing.
Further Reading
Hands-On Tasks (Optional)
Security design drills — threat modeling, auth flows, and incident playbooks. Assumes Networking (TLS) fundamentals.
- Audit logs for PII leakage15m
Application logs request bodies on error. List fields to redact, structured logging pattern, and who can access raw logs.