Dalibo has announced PostgreSQL Anonymizer 3.3, described as a major security update to the extension that hides or replaces personally identifiable information (PII) and commercially sensitive data inside a PostgreSQL database. The release, announced from Eymoutiers, France, on October 27th, 2026, focuses on a panel of important security fixes rather than new masking capabilities, reinforcing the extension's role as a privacy layer for production and non-production data alike.
The extension supports six distinct masking strategies, each paired with a suite of masking functions covering techniques such as substitution, randomization, faking, pseudonymization, partial scrambling, shuffling, noise addition and generalization. The concrete changes and packaging details in this release:
- PostgreSQL Anonymizer 3.3 delivers a set of important security fixes, making the upgrade the headline change for existing users.
- Dynamic Masking provides real-time data protection, while Static Masking performs permanent data transformation.
- Replica Masking enables anonymized logical replication, and Backup Masking produces privacy-protected database exports.
- Masking Views offer controlled data visibility, and Masking Data Wrappers extend protection across systems.
- The extension can be installed via Debian and RPM packages, an Ansible role, a Docker image, and other channels.
- It is supported on major DBaaS providers, including Alibaba Cloud, Crunchy Bridge, Google Cloud SQL, IBM Cloud, Microsoft Azure Database, Neon and Yandex.
For developers, the security-focused nature of 3.3 matters because anonymization is often the safeguard that lets teams copy production-like data into staging, analytics or CI environments without exposing real user records. Because masking can be applied dynamically at query time or statically before export, teams can choose between live protection and irreversible transformation depending on the workflow.
The breadth of delivery options — packages, an Ansible role and a container image — plus support across managed cloud providers means the upgrade path should be straightforward for most deployments. Teams relying on the extension for compliance should prioritize applying the 3.3 security fixes.
Source: https://www.postgresql.org/about/news/postgresql-anonymizer-33-major-security-update-3423/