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Redacted Meaning: What Exactly Is Data Redaction?
redacted meaning

Whether you want to protect sensitive data or avoid potential legal problems, redaction is the way to go. It can help you hide or remove confidential information before you share, publish, or disclose it to the public.


However, many people don’t understand the meaning of redacted information or confuse it with simply deleting information from electronic documents.


Here’s what it truly means to redact.

What Does Redacted Mean?


Redaction is the careful process of deleting, altering, or hiding sensitive information in a document. It’s a common practice when dealing with court documents, medical records, personally identifiable information (PII), and other private data.


This information can be redacted manually, such as by going over it with a black marker, or automatically, by using redaction software.

Importance of Redaction


No matter what type of business you have or what kind of document you’re handling, the main purpose of redaction is to prevent unintended disclosure of sensitive information.


As an individual, redacted documents can protect you from identity theft and keep others from discovering information that you want to keep private.


As a company, proper redaction can ensure that you’re in line with compliance laws and regulations. It also protects trade secrets, prevents data breaches, and mitigates potential lawsuits.

What Needs to Be Redacted?


Redaction can be optional or mandatory, depending on the type of information in question.


For example, if you’re filing documents for legal proceedings, you’re legally required to redact certain information under the Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 5-2. Legal professionals can use redaction tools to fully or partially hide information, such as:


  • SSNs (social security numbers): You should redact them to keep only the last four numbers visible.
  • Financial Account Numbers: You should redact them to keep only the last four digits.
  • DOB (date of birth): Should be entirely redacted, except the year of birth, which is optional.
  • Names of Minors: If minors are involved in the court documents, their names must stay redacted. If including a name is required, you can only use their initials.
  • Home Address: If the court files pertain to a criminal case, the home address should be redacted, and only the city or state can be included.
  • Medical Information
  • Any Unique Identifier


The Wrong Way to Redact


Traditionally, people used to redact information by cutting out text from physical documents or covering it with a marker, but this is no longer an option in the digital age.


Redacting electronic documents can be complicated because you might think you’ve fully redacted the information while it’s, in fact, still accessible.


Here are a few examples of unsafe redaction methods:


  • Deletion: Text changed or deleted from electronic documents is often retrievable. Others can access the text through the file’s metadata, even if you convert the data into PDF form.
  • Highlighting Tools: Using a black highlighter or a blackout tool to cover text is temporary. It can be easily reversed, exposing private data.
  • White Text: Although changing the text color to white might make it invisible to the naked eye, many tools can identify sensitive information and reverse the color change.  

The Right Way to Redact


The best way to redact electronic documents is to use specialized redaction software such as iDox.ai’s Redact Tool. These software tools have an OCR (optical character recognition) feature that analyzes your documents and converts them into readable text.


Afterward, the feature processes the text to find sensitive information that needs to be redacted and removes or hides it.


Alternatively, you could try redacting information manually using Microsoft Word or Adobe Acrobat, but this is time-consuming and has a high chance of error.

Ensuring Your Files Are Properly Redacted


When you start the redaction process, you should review a few issues to ensure that the data is properly redacted.


Here’s a quick checklist to keep in mind:


  • Choose The Right Tool: Make sure that your chosen tool suits your redaction needs. For example, if you’re worried about compliance with global regulations such as GDPR and HIPAA, you can use iDox.ai’s redaction and compliance tools, which are equipped with appropriate templates.
  • Make A Copy: Make a copy of your files before starting the redaction process in case you make a mistake. Redaction is permanent, and you won’t be able to restore information from a heavily redacted version.
  • Specify Your Sensitive Information: List all the sensitive information that you need to redact. Redaction software that uses artificial intelligence, such as iDox.ai’s Redact, can use this list to quickly scan hundreds of files for relevant info and automatically redact it.
  • Choose the Redaction Technique: Some software tools allow you to choose which redaction method to apply to each type of information. For example, you can pixelate sensitive areas in images or delete or replace spreadsheet data.
  • Review: No software redaction tool is perfect. Even iDox.ai’s Redact tool offers no more than 99% accuracy, which is as high as possible. Ensure that the files are in the appropriate form for sharing or publishing and that all sensitive information is hidden.
  • Test the Redacted Copy: Try to uncover, copy, paste, or edit the redacted text. If you can modify or restore previously deleted text, you’ll need to change your redaction tool.

Wrapping Up


In an age where information is power, you must ensure your data is safe and secure. Simply blacking out sensitive information or deleting it from files is not enough.


You need a reliable, efficient, and AI-driven redaction tool such as iDox.ai’s Redact to ensure your documents are properly redacted and truly safe.

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Accessibility: Accessibility measures ensure that documents are accessible to the relevant parties whenever they're needed. This security pillar entails preventing and fending off cyber attacks that deny access to your documents. Access Control: Access control measures involve monitoring documents, specifically how they're accessed. The security system keeps a record of files sent, opened, and modified during specific time periods. Audit trails, digital signatures, and logs are some of the many ways of monitoring document access. Keeping your digital documents protected entails introducing measures that touch on all of the pillars mentioned above. Essential Document Management System Features When choosing a document management system, make sure it provides most or all of the following essential features: Passwords Password protection is one of the most common and straightforward ways to secure PDFs and other digital files. 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May 31, 2024
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