Question 26
Domain 7: Ensuring Data Security and ComplianceA data protection team needs to reduce the exposure of confidential data while still preserving some analytical usefulness. Which method replaces specific values with broader categories such as exact age to age range?
Correct answer: D
Explanation
Generalization reduces identifiability by replacing detailed values with less specific but still useful categories, while other methods transform, remove, or substitute the original data differently. — official.txt
Why each option is right or wrong
A. Hashing converts the value into a fixed transformed output.
Hashing transforms a value rather than grouping it into a broader category.
B. Tokenization substitutes the value with a replacement token.
Tokenization replaces a value with a token instead of reducing its specificity.
C. Suppression removes the value from the dataset entirely.
Suppression deletes or masks the value rather than converting it to a range or category.
D. Generalization changes the value to a less specific category.
The scenario asks for a method that keeps some analytical usefulness by replacing exact values with broader categories such as an exact age becoming an age range. Among the listed methods in the source material, generalization is the technique that makes data less specific while retaining usefulness for analysis.