The Data Preparer

The Data Preparer is a desktop tool that was developed as an extension for the AnalyzeCU website.
Its main goal is to anonymize and encrypt personally identifiable data and other sensitive data in
your AIRES files. This app also supplies decryption for files that you choose to export from the AnalyzeCU website.
Encryption and decryption of files is done with an encryption key that has a *.aced file format. This
encryption key can be generated via the Data Preparer app. After creating an encryption key, it
should be stored in a safe place. Data Preparer is not connected to the network. This means that data
or statistics are not collected.

Data Preparer actions:
Data Preparer follows Advanced Encryption Standard (AES). The Advanced Encryption Standard
(AES) is a National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) specification for the encryption of
electronic data. It is expected to become the accepted means of encrypting digital information,
including financial, telecommunications, and government data. The Data Preparer uses symmetric
encryption. That means that decryption process is only possible with encryption key that is always
stored on the client side.

There are 3 main actions that Data Preparer does:
1) Key generation
2) Encryption of AIRES files
3) Decryption of exported files from AnalyzeCU.

Key Generation
Encryption keys are the main part of security. The key is symmetric, so, it means that it is stored only
locally on the client side. Data that was encrypted using encryption key could not be decrypted
without it. If encryption key is lost, then data cannot be recovered. So, make sure you save a copy of
your key in a secure backup location. Your encryption key should be generated only once and then
all encryptions / decryptions should be performed using it. Otherwise, data will be messed up,
because AnalyzeCU would not be able to match data that was encrypted with two different keys. It is
necessary to back up the encryption key!

All exported files will be with .acmd extension. That means they hold encrypted sensitive data that
can be decrypted only with encryption key that was generated previously and used for encryption.
If you lose your encryption key, then it will not be possible to recover the data and you will need to
load all your historic AIRES file data again with a new encryption key.

Updated on: 13/06/2024