Eymoutiers, France, July 2nd, 2025 We're publishing `PostgreSQL Anonymizer 2.3` today, introducing the long awaited replica masking mechanism. Database Administrators can now synchronize a "masked clone" with their production database using PostgreSQL logical replication.
Enhanced Privacy Protection for Your Data -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- `PostgreSQL Anonymizer` is an extension that hides or replaces personally identifiable information (PII) or commercially sensitive data from a PostgreSQL database. The extension offers five different masking strategies: * [Dynamic Masking] - Real-time data protection * [Static Masking] - Permanent data transformation * [Replica Masking] - Anonymized logical replication * [Backup Masking] - Privacy-protected database exports * [Masking Views] - Controlled data visibility * [Masking Data Wrappers] - Extended protection across systems Each strategy is complemented by an enhanced suite of Masking Functions, including advanced techniques such as: Substitution, Randomization, Faking, Pseudonymization, Partial Scrambling, Shuffling, Noise Addition and Generalization. The extension can be installed with Debian and RPM packages, an Ansible role, a docker image, etc. It is also available on major DBaaS providers including : Alibaba Cloud, Crunchy Bridge, Google Cloud SQL, Microsoft Azure Database, Neon, etc. See the [INSTALL] section of the documentation for more details! [Masking Functions]: https://postgresql-anonymizer.readthedocs.io/en/latest/masking_functions/ [Backup Masking]: https://postgresql-anonymizer.readthedocs.io/en/latest/anonymous_dumps/ [Static Masking]: https://postgresql-anonymizer.readthedocs.io/en/latest/static_masking/ [Dynamic Masking]: https://postgresql-anonymizer.readthedocs.io/en/latest/dynamic_masking/ [Replica Masking]: https://postgresql-anonymizer.readthedocs.io/en/latest/replica_masking/ [Masking Views]: https://postgresql-anonymizer.readthedocs.io/en/stable/masking_views/ [Masking Data Wrappers]: https://postgresql-anonymizer.readthedocs.io/en/stable/masking_data_wrappers/ [INSTALL]: https://postgresql-anonymizer.readthedocs.io/en/latest/INSTALL/ Introducing Replica Masking -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- In some situations, you may want to have an anonymized copy of your production database on another instance like with Backup Masking (aka "Anonymized Dumps") but you also would like this copy to be up-to-date with the original data like with Dynamic Masking… With the Replica Masking feature, you can use PostgreSQL logical replication to create an anonymized clone of your production database. See the [documentation](https://postgresql-anonymizer.readthedocs.io/en/latest/replica_masking/) for more details. *** WARNING! DO NOT USE IN PRODUCTION*** This feature is currently under heavy development. This implementation of Replica Masking is provided for testing purpose only. Major breaking changes may be introduced at any time and we may even remove this feature entirely if we feel it does not reach our standard of quality and stability. We welcome any feedback, testing reports, comments and contributions. But for the moment, we do not guarantee any form of support for this feature. Our current plan is to stabilize this feature in version 3.0, which is scheduled for early 2026. Acknowledgments -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This release also includes code, bugfixes, documentation, code reviews and ideas from Robin Portigliatti, Suhas Thalanki, Benoit Lobréau and other [contributors]. And also special thanks to the [PGRX] team for their amazing work! [contributors]: https://gitlab.com/dalibo/postgresql_anonymizer/-/blob/master/AUTHORS.md [PGRX]: https://github.com/pgcentralfoundation/pgrx Join our community to improve data privacy! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- PostgreSQL Anonymizer is part of the Dalibo Labs initiative. It is mainly developed by Damien Clochard. This is an open project, contributions are welcome. We need your feedback and ideas! Let us know what you think of this tool, how it fits your needs and what features are missing. If you want to help, you can find a [list of `Junior Jobs`](https://gitlab.com/dalibo/postgresql_anonymizer/issues?label_name%5B%5D=Junior+Jobs).
