Masking is not redacting
Over the past 10 years, we have seen spectacular redaction errors, exposing national security secrets, business deals, and everything in between. And no one appears to be immune – lawyers representing Paul Manafort, the British Ministry of Defence, Facebook, UK Department of Transport, US Transportation Security Administration, The New York Times, and former Illinois governor Rob Blagojevich – all accidentally disclosed information they thought had been redacted.
In almost all these cases we see the same problematic workaround - confidential information is covered up with black boxes and the documents are converted to PDF. Masking text in this way is not redaction. Simply copying the text from the PDF into a Word document exposes the text.
Would your redactions pass the test? Or, could text be hidden in plain sight? Uncover unnecessary risk in your PDF redaction workflow and avoid embarrassing mistakes.
The four most common redaction errors
Failing to clean metadata from a Word document after redacting text can expose the contents
Changing the redacted text font color to white to match the background does not remove it from the document
Masking text with a black box does not remove it from the document
Masking text and flattening the PDF file does not remove the content from the document
A new industry guide examines the leading causes of redaction failure and what you can do to protect your documents.
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See how PDF pattern redaction saves time
Pattern search and redaction empowers users to quickly find and redact information such as credit card numbers, dates, email addresses, and social security numbers. Attorneys now have an obligation to redact this type of confidential information before submitting documents to courts.
Watch this video to discover the Pattern Search and Redact feature in pdfDocs.
A PDF redaction tool is the only solution
A PDF redaction solution permanently removes information from a document once the redaction has been applied. It cannot be undone or exposed later because it is no longer in the file.
PDF file editors like pdfDocs are developed with redaction capabilities, complete with review and approval workflows; search and redact text; search and redact patterns (credit card numbers, etc.); as well as exemption codes to explain the redaction. These features reduce the time it takes to review and redact and minimize the chance of getting it wrong.
Don’t be the next big redaction news story. With a true PDF redaction solution, you can redact documents with confidence.