Intelligent Redaction in Action

Intelligent redaction automates the process of protecting sensitive information in documents, and it matches the information that is revealed to the viewer’s level of access. Jessica Staddon, manager of the security research area at PARC, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Xerox Corporation, described two possible applications of PARC’s software, which is not yet commercialized.

Financial services:
A mortgage application is typically processed by a number of employees of the lender. Not everyone needs to see all the information in the application. Our technology allows a single version of the application to circulate within the organization, with the guarantee that each employee only sees what he or she needs to see in the document. This is "reversible redaction" in which the employees' access rights determine what they can see in the document and what is redacted from their view. PARC technology supports separation of duty and the trend in privacy legislation to handle information access on a "need to know" basis.

Litigation support:
PARC's ethnographic interviews with paralegals and attorneys highlighted the difficulties of identifying information that falls under attorney-client privilege, and which should be redacted. In practice, identifying such information involves multiple sets of eyes -- junior attorneys make a first pass, and then send the documents to senior attorneys for comments, etc. PARC technology makes it easier to collaborate during the process of identifying, and redacting, privileged information.