Techniques and architectures for selective obfuscation of personally identifiable information (PII) in environments capable of replicating data

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-11487900-B2
Application number	US-201916530937-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Aug 2, 2019
Priority date	May 3, 2017
Publication date	Nov 1, 2022
Grant date	Nov 1, 2022

Abstract

Within one or more instances of a computing environment where an instance is a self-contained architecture to provide at least one database with corresponding search and file system. User information from the one or more instances of the computing environment is organized as zones. A zone is based on one or more characteristics of corresponding user information that are different than the instance to which the user information belongs. User information is selectively obfuscated prior to transmitting blocks of data including the obfuscated user information. The selective obfuscation is based on zone information for one or more zones to which the user information belongs.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A system comprising:
a plurality of hardware computing systems each having one or more processors and at least one memory component coupled with the one or more processors, the plurality of hardware computing systems to provide one or more instances of a computing environment, wherein an instance is a self-contained architecture to provide at least one database with corresponding search and file system and wherein the plurality of hardware computing systems have associated categories comprising standard, standard data residency, public and public data residency;
the plurality of hardware computing systems to organize user information from the one or more instances of the computing environment as zones, wherein a zone is associated with one or more data residency requirements; and
the plurality of hardware computing systems to selectively obfuscate user information prior to transmitting blocks of data including the obfuscated user information from a source zone to a destination zone, wherein the selective obfuscation is based on a corresponding category of the associated categories and on the data residency requirement.

2. The system of claim 1 wherein the computing environment comprises a multitenant environment, wherein a tenant comprises a group of users who share a common access with specific privileges to a specified instance.

3. The system of claim 2 wherein the multitenant environment provides each tenant with a dedicated share of the specified instance including one or more of tenant specific data, user management, tenant-specific functionality, configuration, customizations, non-functional properties and associated applications.

4. The system of claim 1 wherein a zone is associated with one or more characteristics of corresponding user information that are different than the instance to which the user information belongs.

5. The system of claim 4 wherein the one or more characteristics comprise at least tenant information for the corresponding user information.

6. The system of claim 1 wherein data residency requirements comprise:
personally identifiable information (PII) cannot leave standard data residency servers unobfuscated, PII cannot be sent to public or public data residency servers unobfuscated, and PII data in a public server cannot leave its geographic region.

7. A method implemented within one or more instances of a computing environment, wherein an instance is a self-contained architecture to provide at least one database with corresponding search and file system, the method comprising:
organizing user information from the one or more instances of the computing environment as zones, wherein a zone is associated with one or more data residency requirements and the computing environment comprises multiple computing systems having associated categories comprising standard, standard data residency, public and public data residency; and
selectively obfuscating user information prior to transmitting blocks of data including the obfuscated user information from a source zone to a destination zone, wherein the selective obfuscation is based on zone information for the source zone and the destination zone, wherein the selective obfuscation is based on a corresponding category of the associated categories and on the data residency requirement.

8. The method of claim 7 , wherein a zone is associated with one or more characteristics of corresponding user information that are different than the instance to which the user information belongs.

9. The system of claim 7 wherein the computing environment comprises a multitenant environment and the multitenant environment provides each tenant with a dedicated share of a specified instance including one or more of tenant specific data, user management, tenant-specific functionality, configuration, customizations, nonfunctional properties and associated applications.

10. The system of claim 8 wherein the one or more characteristics comprise at least tenant information for the corresponding user information.

11. The system of claim 7 wherein data residency requirements comprise:
personally identifiable information (PII) cannot leave standard data residency servers unobfuscated, PII cannot be sent to public or public data residency servers unobfuscated, and PII data in a public server cannot leave its geographic region.

12. A non-transitory computer-readable medium having stored thereon instructions that, when executed, are configurable to cause one or more processors to provide one or more instances of a computing environment, wherein an instance is a self-contained architecture to provide at least one database with corresponding search and file system, the instructions further comprising instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to:
organize user information from the one or more instances of the computing environment as zones, wherein a zone is associated with one or more data residency requirements and the computing environment comprises multiple computing systems having associated categories comprising standard, standard data residency, public and public data residency; and
selectively obfuscate user information prior to transmitting blocks of data including the obfuscated user information from a source zone to a destination zone, wherein the selective obfuscation is based on zone information for the source zone and the destination zone, wherein the selective obfuscation is based on a corresponding category of the associated categories and on the data residency requirement.

13. The method of claim 12 , wherein a zone is based on one or more characteristics of corresponding user information that are different than the instance to which the user information belongs.

14. The system of claim 12 wherein the computing environment comprises a multitenant environment and the multitenant environment provides each tenant with a dedicated share of the specified instance including one or more of tenant specific data, user management, tenant-specific functionality, configuration, customizations, nonfunctional properties and associated applications.

15. The system of claim 13 wherein the one or more characteristics comprise at least tenant information for the corresponding user information.

16. The system of claim 12 wherein data residency requirements comprise:
personally identifiable information (PII) cannot leave standard data residency servers unobfuscated, PII cannot be sent to public or public data residency servers unobfuscated, and PII data in a public server cannot leave its geographic region.

Assignees

• Salesforce Com Inc

Inventors

• Obembe Olumayokun
• Lapouchnian Gregory
• Devadhar Vijayanth
• Woods Jason
• Govindarajan Karthikeyan
• Bijwe Ashwini
• Peddada Prasad

Classifications

• G06F21/6209

  to a single file or object, e.g. in a secure envelope, encrypted and accessed using a key, or with access control rules appended to the object itself · CPC title

• G06F21/6254 Primary

  by anonymising data, e.g. decorrelating personal data from the owner's identification · CPC title

• H04L9/3239

  involving non-keyed hash functions, e.g. modification detection codes [MDCs], MD5, SHA or RIPEMD · CPC title

• G06F16/31

  Indexing; Data structures therefor; Storage structures · CPC title

• H04L2209/42

  Anonymization, e.g. involving pseudonyms · CPC title