Redaction
What does redaction mean?
Redaction is the process of editing a document to obscure or remove sensitive or confidential information before publication or disclosure. It is commonly used in legal, compliance, and data protection contexts to prevent the exposure of personal data, classified content, or proprietary details.
How does redaction work?
Redaction involves identifying and concealing specific parts of a document. Methods can include:
- Manual redaction: Using black ink or digital tools to obscure text.
- Automated redaction: Software tools that detect and redact patterns (like Social Security numbers or credit card details).
- Layered document processing: Ensuring redacted content cannot be recovered from underlying document layers or metadata.
Redaction helps organizations with the following:
- Protect personal and sensitive data (e.g. under GDPR, CCPA, HIPAA).
- Comply with privacy and security regulations.
- Safeguard trade secrets and proprietary business information.
- Minimize legal and reputational risks from data leaks.
FAQs about redaction
Names, addresses, phone numbers, financial data, health information, legal identifiers, and any other sensitive or regulated content.
No. Redaction hides or masks data for publication or external sharing, while deletion removes it entirely from records or databases.
Various laws including GDPR (EU), CCPA (California), and HIPAA (USA) mandate protecting personal information, which often involves redaction.
If redaction is done improperly (e.g., using only black highlight or not flattening PDF layers), it may be reversible. Proper tools ensure permanent redaction.
No. It applies to both physical documents (e.g. paper files) and digital formats (PDFs, emails, spreadsheets).