Redaction plays a critical role when individuals and businesses are conducting transactions and managing compliance with federal regulations. It involves the removal of sensitive details or personal information in a document before making it available to the public. This is necessary across different industries – as long as personal information is involved.
Some of the information that gets redacted from a document include people’s names, social security numbers, addresses, trade secrets, birthdates, and classified national info. Depending on the business you’re running, some redactions are mandatory according to state or federal law. Some are even required by international legislation.
The cost of not redacting your confidential information
When you fail to redact your documents properly, the cost can be disastrous for your business or practice. When you transfer a client’s sensitive data to a third party without their consent, you could find yourself dealing with a catastrophe. When you combine the legal fees, loss of credibility and trust, penalties, and fines, the impact is fatal. It’s enough to tear down an established or fully-fledged organization.
Due to these costs, redaction has become a priority for various businesses. It’s the only way to comply with privacy legislation and avoid such costs. As such, startups, companies, and organizations across the world are now taking the need for redacting documents seriously.
Before the introduction of redaction software, people would redact documents manually. However, these manual redaction techniques were not foolproof, as Redactable founder and CEO Amanda Levay can confirm. “As a loan consultant, I would put a white box over my text to hide sensitive information,” says Levay. I found out, along with many others, that it wasn’t the case.”
Convinced that there was a better way to redact her clients’ sensitive information, Levay started Redactable – an AI-driven platform for permanent redaction.
What specific tasks did Levay build Redactable to manage?
During her time in the finance industry, she would receive countless documents from clients and businesses. These documents were sent to her as part of due diligence packages. Levay would handle confidential documents like tax returns, account information, social security numbers, inspection reports, and appraisal reports. One of the most challenging parts of her job was keeping confidential information private.
As a person working in finance, you don’t want to make any mistakes, especially if the mistake leads to someone’s private information being compromised. Levay soon realized that her colleagues were facing the same challenge. With time, she learned that this was a common problem across different industries.
After realizing that companies were not redacting their documents well, Levay was inspired to build a platform where they could easily and reliably do so.
Redactable brings you the convenience you need in a redaction tool. It leverages AI/ML technology to automate the redaction process. You simply upload your documents and Redactable will handle the actual redaction process.
This is a platform that helps businesses and individuals alike to protect sensitive information in their documents. It identifies the confidential information in a document and removes it. The platform is AI-driven to maximize efficiency and reliability, so clients don’t have to worry about crucial information getting in the wrong hands.
With Redactable, you can feel safe and confident because the system redacts sensitive information permanently. In other words, when you send a document to someone from Redactable, they cannot reverse the changes. They can only access what the Redactable platform has deemed less sensitive information.
How does it work?
The mechanism behind Redactable is simple. It’s even easier if you are using the “Auto” function. In fact, you can redact in just a few clicks. With the help of this tool, you can redact several classes of information. These include social security numbers, account numbers, phone numbers, addresses, birthdates, and names. Redactable also supports custom redaction if there is sensitive information that doesn’t fit among the pre-determined categories.
After choosing the categories, the software will scan the entire document and redact them automatically. There might be times when you have hundreds of files or thousands of documents to redact. In such a scenario, Redactable is a resourceful tool. It will handle all your redactions efficiently regardless of the file size.
Using this tool requires you to follow four simple steps. They include:
- Upload your file or document to the program
- The Redaction Wizard will automatically search for redactable terms. In this step, there are four different ways to find redactable information. They are:
- Manual
- Patterns
- Auto
- Search Text
- Redaction – permanent removal of sensitive or classified information
- Download Document – the final document is free of sensitive or classified information, including metadata.
Key Features
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Cloud-based
The application is hosted on the web. As a result, you can access it from any browser once you have an account. That means you don’t have to download and install it on your device.
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Permanent
The redactions are permanent, not the kind that people can use programs to unmask. Therefore, you can rest assured that your sensitive information is safe once redacted.
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Easy to Use
The program comes with an intuitive wizard to guide you every step of the way. You don’t need complex IT training to understand how to use it. In fact, you don’t have to be tech-savvy at all to use this tool. Simply log in, and the wizard will guide you.
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Collaborative Redaction
If you’re working on shared documents with colleagues, the tool supports collaborative redaction. In other words, you and your colleagues can work together to redact documents as a team. This makes it easier to work on huge projects.
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Redaction Workflow
When you choose Redactable as your redaction tool, organization of your workflow is a priority. The tool has been built on AI to keep the entire process organized. From logging in to set up, the redaction workflow is quite efficient and impressive.
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Built-in AI
The tool has built-in AI which is there to make your redactions accurate. It detects sensitive details automatically and then redacts them. It also supports manually searching terms in the document before redacting.
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Integrations
Using this tool is convenient, especially if your documents are in cloud-based storage. Simply integrate it with your favorite service for easy management of files. For example, you can integrate it with Dropbox, among other similar services. Some of the built-in integrations for easy accessibility include OneDrive, Dropbox, and Google Drive.
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Redaction Certificates
Redactable provides court-approved ‘Redaction Certificates’ attached with every redacted document. This is important, considering the sensitivity of client information and the repercussions that could follow if you the redaction is not done properly. With Redactable, you can keep track of who redacted which document and when they did it.
The future at Redactable
Redactable is launching with 900k in pre-seed funding raised to deliver the software to professionals in different industries across the world. With support from renowned VCs like The Fund, Hustle Fund, Revelry and Stony Lonesome Group, the future at Redactable is bright.
Over to you
Are you ready to protect your business by improving the privacy and security of your data? Well, it’s time to use Redactable. As mentioned earlier, it’s a reliable tool for the finance, legal, compliance, and B2B spheres. Therefore, if your business falls short in any of these areas, feel free to reach out. And remember, the cost of not securing your data is even more fatal than the investment it requires.
Failing to comply with federal or state legislation on data privacy could be bad news for your business. If you are uncertain of whether or not this tool is right for your business, reach out for consultation via their website. For constant updates, you can also find Redactable on LinkedIn and Twitter.