A city parking system must store payment references without retaining raw primary account numbers in the municipal database. Which method best meets that goal?
Select an answer to reveal the explanation.
Short Explanation
Tokenization swaps the real card number for a harmless stand-in—like a coat-check ticket—so the city database never keeps the raw PAN. Fancy hostnames and taped printouts are not substitutes. Real hashing isn’t meant to be reversible either.
Full Explanation
Tokenization replaces sensitive values such as payment card PANs with non-sensitive surrogate tokens for storage and processing, reducing the footprint of regulated cardholder data in municipal systems. Cleartext storage, physical display of PANs, or mislabeled reversible schemes do not achieve tokenization’s risk reduction. Use tokenization when the business needs a stable reference without retaining the original secret in the primary database.