Abstract: A method which prevents the unauthorized dissemination of protected data in a client-server environment through the use of partial, or split key encryption. An encrypted symmetric key is first split, and each split is then transformed. The transformed splits are then separated between client and server and the encrypted key is destroyed. To recombine the splits for the purpose of encrypting or decrypting then requires a connection between client and server in which either the server-side split is sent to the client or the client-side split is sent to the server. A reverse transformation is then performed on both client-side and server-side splits, the splits are recombined, and the resulting encrypted key can then be used with either traditional symmetric key cryptography, or as a private key in public key cryptography, provided the means to decrypt and use the key already exist.