Safe environments.
WHY IT MATTERS
Production data in a development environment is a breach waiting to happen.
WHAT MAKES IT A BREACH
Weaker protection, more access, and copies proliferating.
WHAT TO DO INSTEAD
Anonymise before copying.
WHAT ANONYMISATION MUST REPLACE
Names Email addresses and telephone numbers Addresses Payment details Anything identifying
WHY REPLACING NAMES ALONE IS INSUFFICIENT
Addresses, dates and relationships still identify people.
WHAT TO PRESERVE
Structure, distribution and volume.
WHY VOLUME MATTERS
Development against a thousand rows hides every performance problem.
WHAT TO DO ABOUT EMAIL
Replace every address, so no test can contact a real person.
WHY
Sending test messages to customers is a common and damaging accident.
WHAT ELSE TO NEUTRALISE
Payment credentials Integration keys Webhook destinations
WHAT TO AUTOMATE
The anonymisation, as part of the copy.
WHY
A manual step is skipped eventually.
WHAT TO RESTRICT
Who may run a production copy at all.
WHAT TO LOG
Every such copy.
WHAT TO NEVER DO
Point a development application at the production database.
