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Data Policy and encryption

Important: If you encrypted any field in your database, ensure that you store the KEY value defined in the sm.ini file in a safe place. Without the correct KEY value, you will not be able to decrypt.

When the Data Policy for a table changes, the system checks to see if the encryption status changes. If the status changes from false to true, each record in the file is read, the field is encrypted, and the data is written back to the file. If the status has changed from true to false, each record in the file is read, the field is decrypted, and the data is written back to the file. The entire process includes reading and updating each record in the file, which could result in performance loss.

Note: Once a field in a table is encrypted, users can no longer search for the contents of the field. The field is not searchable.

Related concepts

Environment configuration
Data Policy
Data Policy expressions
Data Policy and the object record

Related tasks

Access Data Policy
Change the columns in a record list
Change the encryption key value
Example: Create and manage a revision
Create a Data Policy revision