Partial Document Encryption

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What Does Partial Document Encryption Mean?

Partial document encryption is an encryption method wherein different parts of a document are separately encrypted. This is often done for efficiency of retrieval to lower the demands on the computer system in general.

Techopedia Explains Partial Document Encryption

The most common type of partial document encryption involves encrypting each separate page or component of a document separately. This is sometimes called “on-demand” encryption. The idea is that, when a certain piece of the document is requested, it goes out encrypted with its own security certificate. This allows administrators to get around the burden of encrypting the entire document based on a request.

In order to implement partial document encryption, security experts need specific algorithms that will encrypt only the desired portion of a file or document.

Although this method is currently prominent, in the future, partial document encryption may also be used to describe methods that only encrypt parts of a document on a word-by-word basis as a form of digital redaction for more precise security.

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Margaret Rouse
Technology Expert
Margaret Rouse
Technology Expert

Margaret is an award-winning technical writer and teacher known for her ability to explain complex technical subjects to a non-technical business audience. Over the past twenty years, her IT definitions have been published by Que in an encyclopedia of technology terms and cited in articles by the New York Times, Time Magazine, USA Today, ZDNet, PC Magazine, and Discovery Magazine. She joined Techopedia in 2011. Margaret's idea of a fun day is helping IT and business professionals learn to speak each other’s highly specialized languages.

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