1. A method for protecting an item of private information in a database, wherein the method comprises: receiving the item of private information at a database in plain text, wherein the item of private information is used as a key for retrieving data from the database; creating a hash of the item of private information at the database, wherein creating the hash farther comprises checking a column attribute for a column, which stores the item of private information, in the database to determine that “privacy” is enabled for the column, and only upon privacy being enabled for the column, creating the hash, wherein the hash of the item of private information is created by the database in a manner that is transparent to an application which manipulates the private information, and wherein the hash is a one-way hash; storing the hash of the item of private information in the database, wherein the hash of the item of private information is a unique lookup key within the database, and wherein the item of private information does not exist in the database in plain-text form; creating an index based on the hash; and discarding the item of private information.