The mishandling of sensitive information in documents is not something rare. It is more common than you think. Take the recent example of Sony, which attempted to redact sensitive financial data using a Sharpie marker. However, the redaction proved ineffective, exposing financial secrets and leading to significant consequences for the company.
A similar incident occurred with the U.S. Transportation Security Administration (TSA). The agency attempted to conceal sensitive details in its passenger screening procedures manual by using black boxes in a PDF. However, the redacted document remained editable, inadvertently exposing confidential security procedures and creating a serious national security risk.
These cases highlight the critical need to adequately safeguard sensitive information in documents such as legal contracts, financial reports, business proposals, healthcare records, insurance policies, and educational documents. Ensuring proper redaction is essential to complying with data privacy regulations and responding to the rising information access requests on time.
Personally Identifiable Information (PII) refers to data that can identify an individual. Protected Health Information (PHI) includes healthcare records, while Confidential Commercial Information (CCI) covers trade secrets and proprietary business data, all requiring protection.
In this blog, we’ll discuss the critical features, benefits, and applications of a document redaction tool and explore some of the best options for managing sensitive data in various documents across various industries.
Document redaction is the process of removing, hiding, or obscuring sensitive information in documents—whether physical, electronic, or scanned—to protect data privacy and comply with regulations such as HIPAA, FERPA, CJIS Security Policy, CCPA, GDPR, PCI-DSS, and to fulfill information access requests like FOIA and DSARs.
A document redaction tool is a dedicated software designed to permanently hide sensitive information from any document - DOC, PDF, XLS, PPT, CSV, HTML, etc. They are needed to maintain information confidentiality, reduce the risk of information disclosure, and meet compliance requirements.
Whether you're in legal, law enforcement, healthcare, finance, education, or the government sector, understanding the importance and potential of a document redaction tool is crucial to navigating the complexities of meeting various compliances and ensuring data privacy.
You might wonder why a document redaction tool is necessary when redaction can be done manually. But let’s revisit the Sony and TSA incidents—Sony attempted to redact financial data with a Sharpie marker, while TSA used black boxes in an editable PDF document. Both methods failed, exposing sensitive information. Imagine needing to redact multiple documents under the pressure of a looming FOIA or DSAR request deadline. Would manual redaction still be enough?
Let us explore the need for document redaction tools in the following section.
Redacting lengthy documents is cumbersome, time-consuming, and prone to errors. The challenge grows when handling multiple files at once or when maintaining the integrity of the original document is crucial. So, how can you efficiently overcome these obstacles while ensuring accuracy, cost-effectiveness, and optimal use of resources?
For instance, imagine a law firm handling hundreds of case files that need sensitive information redacted before they can be submitted to court. Doing this manually would consume countless hours and introduce a risk of overlooking confidential details.
By employing an AI-based document redaction tool, the firm can automatically process and redact numerous files simultaneously, ensuring consistency and compliance while keeping the original documents untouched. This approach not only saves time and reduces costs but also enhances the accuracy of the redaction process.
An AI-based tool for redacting documents in your workflow avoids such issues and provides many other benefits, making your redaction process more efficient, complete, and secure.
Before we delve deep into the features, benefits, and applications, you should have a step-by-step overview of how to use a document redaction tool. Follow these steps to redact documents effectively.
Upload or open the file format that you want to redact. Whether you want to redact a PDF, Word document, Excel file, scanned document, or any other file, upload it using the redaction tool.
Next, you can choose the mode of redaction from Manual or Automatic Redaction based on your preference - whether you want to manually control the redaction process or let the tool automatically detect and redact sensitive information for better efficiency and accuracy. Advanced redaction tools offer automatic redaction features with the help of AI and Machine Learning features built into them.
You can specify the types of information that need to be blurred or blacked out, such as names, faces, social security numbers, or other Personally Identifiable Information (PII).
You may choose to select specific text and let the tool identify certain type(s) of text that need to be redacted
As the tool begins the redaction process, it will either guide you through manual redaction or automatically redact the defined objects. The tool's AI algorithm will help automatically redact your uploaded document.
You can also review the redacted document to ensure all necessary information is properly obscured.
Once satisfied with the redaction, save the redacted video and export the same or copy the file to your desired location.
Whether you want to redact a PDF, redact a Word document, or simply black out information from any other document, a document redaction tool effectively does that for you with the following benefits:
A document redaction tool reduces the risk of sensitive information disclosure by removing or obscuring sensitive data, unauthorized access, and potential misuse of information. By using software for redacting documents, you can protect sensitive details, such as names, addresses, social security numbers (SSNs), taxpayer identification numbers, trade secrets, credit card and payment details, etc.
Advanced document redaction tools can automatically identify and redact sensitive information with multiple features, significantly saving time and reducing the likelihood of human error. Additionally, document redaction software ensures no information is left unredacted and open for the public eye by following a consistent approach across all document files.
Correctly redacted documents show clients and stakeholders that your organization takes data privacy seriously, helping to build and maintain trust with your partners and stakeholders. A document redaction tool can help achieve this efficiently. Moreover, a redaction tool ensures that documents are handled professionally, with sensitive information securely hidden before sharing or publication.
A document redaction tool ensures that your original file remains intact, even after redaction. Advanced redaction tools create a separate redacted copy, making it impossible to trace back to the original, unredacted document. However, as the document owner, you can still preserve the original file and securely store it in a secure, centralized repository of document redaction software.
With the benefits mentioned above in mind, it’s clear that choosing the right tool is crucial. But what should you look for when selecting the best document redaction software? Let’s explore the key features of a document redaction tool to help you make an informed decision.
These features will help you evaluate what to look for in redaction tools for all your document redaction needs, whether you're redacting PDFs or any other document.
Advanced document redaction tools are equipped with AI redaction capabilities to automatically identify and redact sensitive information based on predefined rules or learned patterns. This significantly improves efficiency and reduces the risk of human error.
This feature allows you to upload and redact large volumes of documents. The tool should be able to process different file formats simultaneously (PDF, DOCX, etc.) in bulk, helping you save time and ensure consistency. Automated redaction significantly reduces manual effort and minimizes the risk of human error, ensuring that sensitive information is accurately and uniformly protected.
You may have multiple documents following a similar pattern of sensitive information. For instance, what if you need to blur information that appears in the license registration number field of 100s of filled forms? In this case, you need a tool that allows you to define patterns and then remove information.
Information comes from various sources and should be safeguarded at all costs. A document redaction tool should be able to redact multiple file formats of PDFs, Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, scanned documents, or any other file type containing sensitive information. Apart from document redaction, advanced redaction software also supports audio, video, and image redaction.
Information within documents is often embedded in an image or comes as a scanned document. Hence, Optical Character Recognition (OCR) capabilities allow the tool to recognize and redact such textual information from scanned documents or images containing text.
Some document redaction software keeps audit logs that record all redaction activities performed on a document. This feature helps with compliance and accountability. Moreover, you can generate reports summarizing redaction actions taken on a document or a range of documents.
Having an extra layer of security in your redactor tool is essential to ensure that only authorized users get access to your files and redaction access. The granular access controls feature in secure and advanced document redaction tools allows administrators to set permissions for those who can view, edit, and redact documents.
In addition, granular Controls in most redactor tools help you monitor and limit users' actions, such as restricting certain users to viewing only redacted documents without the ability to edit or remove redactions.
Advanced redaction tools include encryption features to secure documents during the redaction process and when they are stored or shared, ensuring advanced protection of sensitive information. Advanced document redaction tools also provide other robust login controls such as SSO integration, IP and domain restrictions, and configurable retention policies.
These essential features provide a range of benefits, so it is crucial to evaluate them when choosing a redaction tool. But you don’t have to spend time searching for the right tool! Below, we have compiled a list of some essential document redaction tools that can help you take advantage of the above features.
Let's look at some advanced AI-based document redaction tools. These tools allow you to effectively redact documents with the necessary features to ensure information protection and compliance.
VIDIZMO Redactor is an AI-powered redaction solutions provider for enterprises. With the help of this platform, you can effectively avail yourself of the benefits and required features as an out-of-the-box solution, with multiple deployment options, including cloud as well as on-premises.
Key Features
Objective Redact is an AI-based document redaction tool that speeds up the redaction workflow, facilitates internal redaction reviews, and protects sensitive information from documents.
Key Features
Redactable is a cloud-based document redaction tool that uses AI to quickly and securely redact documents to remove sensitive information.
Key Features
CaseGuard is another specialized redaction tool designed for law enforcement and legal professionals. It offers the following features: document, video, audio, and image redaction.
Key Features
Based on these essential document redaction tools and their features, you can now choose the right tool for all your document redaction needs!
Protecting sensitive information is a critical concern across industries. Understanding the applicability of document redaction tools is vital for ensuring compliance and safeguarding privacy in diverse professional environments.
Protecting Client Confidentiality: Redaction tools remove sensitive information, such as client names, addresses, and financial details, to maintain attorney-client privilege.
Complying with Court Orders: Legal documents often require redaction before submission to comply with court orders or regulations, ensuring that only relevant information is shared.
HIPAA Compliance: Redaction tools help remove PHI from documents, ensuring compliance with HIPAA regulations and protecting patient privacy.
Medical Research: When sharing medical records for research, redaction tools anonymize patient data while preserving the necessary information for analysis.
Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) Requests: Redaction tools allow the handling of FOIA requests by removing sensitive information from government documents before they are released to the public, ensuring national security and personal privacy.
Protecting Personal Financial Data: Redaction tools obscure bank account numbers, social security numbers, and other sensitive financial information in documents shared internally or with third parties.
Redaction tools also enable compliance with regulations that require the protection of customer information, such as GDPR in Europe.
Employee Privacy: Human Resource departments may use redaction tools to remove sensitive personal information, such as social security numbers and medical information, from employee records when sharing them internally or externally.
Mergers and Acquisitions: During due diligence, redaction tools remove sensitive information from documents shared between companies to protect trade secrets and intellectual property.
Internal Investigations: Corporations use redaction tools to protect employee privacy and confidential business information during internal audits or investigations.
Redaction is used to comply with the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), ensuring that student information is protected and only disclosed to authorized parties.
Journalists and publishers use redaction tools to protect the identities of confidential sources and sensitive information before releasing documents to the public.
Media outlets may need to redact information by legal rulings or privacy laws before publishing certain documents.
As data security concerns escalate with the exponential growth of information and the surge in data breaches, safeguarding sensitive information has become imperative. Document redaction tools offer a robust solution by automating the protection of confidential data across large quantities in various file formats.
Integrating an advanced and automated document redaction tool like VIDIZMO Redactor into your workflow will streamline the redaction process and enhance accuracy and compliance with the help of AI and robust security capabilities. Understanding and utilizing document redaction tools can significantly bolster your data security efforts, whether handling legal documents, medical records, financial data, or other sensitive documents.
A document redaction tool is a dedicated software application used to redact sensitive information, such as personally identifiable information (PII), protected health information (PHI), commercial confidential information (CCI), and more, from documents.
You can redact a scanned PDF using VIDIZMO Redactor, which detects any PII from scanned documents and images embedded in the text.
A document redaction tool protects confidential and sensitive information, including PII and PHI. This ensures that all confidential data remains protected before it is further consumed or shared. Redaction additionally helps you stay protected from security breaches and ensures compliance.
You can simply upload your PDF file into the redaction tool from wherever it is stored. Upload your PDF tile into the tool and apply redaction from a range of options available. You can choose to blackout the information in your PDF document. Additionally, you can choose to automate the redaction of your PDF or manually redact it to ensure nothing gets left out according to your needs.
VIDIZMO Redactor, Obejctive Redact, Redactable, and CaseGuard are some document redaction tools offering automatic bulk document redaction.