Test Data Management Vocabulary Exercises

1 / 5

A QA engineer says: "We replaced the production database dump with a sanitised copy for use in the staging environment."

What does "sanitised copy" mean in test data management?

Sanitised copy — a key TDM concept:

Technique	How it sanitises	Preserves format?
Data masking	Replaces real values with realistic fakes (e.g., "John Smith" → "Jane Doe")	Yes
Pseudonymisation	Replaces identifiers with tokens; reversible with key	Yes
Anonymisation	Irreversibly removes identifiers	Partially

Key vocabulary: sanitised copy, PII scrubbing, data masking, test data management (TDM), GDPR-compliant test environment.

2 / 5

A data engineer explains: "We use production data masking rather than fully synthetic data for our test environments."

What is the primary difference between production data masking and synthetic test data generation?

Masking vs. Synthetic test data:

Approach	Source	Edge cases	Privacy
Data masking	Real production data (transformed)	Preserved	Depends on masking quality
Synthetic test data	Generated from scratch (rules/ML)	Must be explicitly designed	No real data exposure

Key vocabulary: static data masking, dynamic data masking, data subsetting, format-preserving encryption, test data provisioning.

3 / 5

A database architect raises a concern: "When we generate synthetic test data for the orders table, we need to maintain referential integrity with the customers and products tables."

What does referential integrity mean in test environments?

Referential integrity in test data generation:

Concept	Example
Foreign key constraint	orders.customer_id must exist in customers.id
Cascade generation	Generate parent records before child records
Orphan records	Child records with no matching parent — a referential integrity violation

Tools and vocabulary: synthetic data generator, entity relationship diagram (ERD), parent-child generation order, constraint-aware generation, Faker, Mimesis.

4 / 5

A compliance officer asks whether the team's staging environment is GDPR-compliant given that it uses copies of production customer data.

Which approach to test data management best addresses GDPR compliance concerns?

GDPR and test environments:

GDPR principle	Implication for test data
Data minimisation	Only process personal data that is necessary — test environments rarely need real PII
Purpose limitation	Data collected for one purpose (e.g., transactions) should not be repurposed for testing
Storage limitation	Personal data should not be retained in test systems beyond what is necessary

Key vocabulary: GDPR-compliant test environment, data minimisation, purpose limitation, personal data, pseudonymisation, right to erasure.

5 / 5

A DevOps team is setting up a test data management (TDM) pipeline. A developer asks: "What is the difference between static data masking and dynamic data masking?"

Which answer correctly distinguishes the two?

Static vs. Dynamic Data Masking:

Type	When masking is applied	Original data	Use case
Static (SDM)	At copy/extract time; data at rest	Not affected	Test/dev environments
Dynamic (DDM)	At query time; real time	Unchanged in DB	Production access control

Key vocabulary: static data masking, dynamic data masking, data obfuscation, masking policy, column-level security, role-based data access.