In Oracle Autonomous Database, what does 'Data Masking' do?

Data masking is a crucial feature in Oracle Autonomous Database, primarily designed to protect sensitive data by obscuring it. This process ensures that sensitive information, such as personally identifiable information (PII), credit card numbers, and health records, can still be utilized for development, testing, or data analysis purposes without exposing the actual data. When data is masked, only authorized users can see the real values while other users see masked or obfuscated versions.

This technique is particularly important in environments where data privacy regulations, such as GDPR or HIPAA, mandate strict controls on how sensitive information is handled. By using data masking, organizations can ensure compliance while still enabling necessary access to data for application development and testing.

The other choices do not accurately represent the function of data masking. Encrypting data involves encoding it to protect against unauthorized access but does not change how the data appears when accessed by authorized entities. Permanently deleting data implies that the data is removed and no longer accessible, which is the opposite of data masking. Compression, on the other hand, relates to optimizing storage space and does not provide any security for sensitive information. Thus, the function of data masking in obscuring sensitive data from unauthorized access is essential for maintaining privacy and compliance.