The complex Fresnel field that contains three-dimensional (3-D) information about an object can be retrieved from an optically generated and electronically detected single off-axis Fresnel hologram of a 3-D object. The retrieved complex Fresnel field gives the appearance of a noise-like distribution. This is primarily due to the scattering nature of the object and the resulting speckle noise, which is a salient trait of the reconstruction process of a hologram. We describe a possible method for securing holographic information by digital encoding of the Fresnel field. A single random-phase Fourier plane encoding is carried out with an assumption that the noisy nature of the complex field may be equivalent to the primary random mask-bonded field, as in the case of conventional double random-phase Fourier plane encoding. The analogy between the decryption process and the numerical reconstruction of the hologram leads to a single-step reconstruction of the complex object field from the encrypted Fresnel field, thus saving computational power. The use of a single off-axis hologram is helpful in zero-order and twin-image free reconstruction. The algorithm is explained with experimental results to support the proof of the concept. © 2007 Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers.