Redaction Update

A recent article on Law Technology News by Kim Walker provides the steps to using redaction tools in Adobe Acrobat (versions 8 or 9) and MS Word 2007. If you're using these tools, redaction can be a simple, safe process to prevent access to metadata or private information.

How to Keep Sensitive Data Blacked Out

How-to: Redaction Redux

Here are some follow-up tips to accompany the Redaction & Metadata post from last year. Jason Krause describes some common redaction errors in "Sloppy Redaction: To Err is Automated". From using the old-fashioned method of a grease pen to block out information to placing a black box over information in an electronic file, redaction errors happen often. He mentions a couple of technologies to be used, but provides more general tips to keep in mind when using any kind of technology to redact. A few of his tips include: watch for metadata, be aware of the ease of contextual interpretation, and always "human" check a document before publishing a document.

How-to: Redaction & Metadata

While you are being careful to strip metadata from your documents, be sure to not overlook the need to redact properly. In a recent Connecticut Law Tribune article, A Major Redaction Gaffe, Douglas Malan writes about the ease with which sensitive data can be easily discovered if the proper techniques are not used in our digital world.

When you need to redact information from a digital document, simply covering the text with a black box or black highlighting does not erase the information. Even when the document is converted to PDF, it is more than likely still going to be accessible. As Malan describes, all you need to do is copy the blocked material and paste it into a word processing document to see the hidden data.

If you need to redact a document, be sure to fully delete the information in such a way that the original document format is not modified. The National Security Agency has provided very complete instructions to do this in their Document on Redaction. You can also, according to Malan, invest in the latest Adobe PDF conversion software to scrub the data behind a redacted section.

How-to: Metadata Update

The ethics surrounding metadata in documents is still under question. For a reminder and update on metadata, see the Law.com article Where Do the Footprints of Metadata Lead? by Marcia Coyle.

And if you would like to know more about how to scrub or redact your document, see our post on Word Processing Confidentiality.

Word Processing Confidentiality

Every word processing document that is created, modified, viewed and forwarded is replete with metadata (background information such as your name, initials, name of your computer, name of the network server or hard disk where you saved the document, and more) that may be more than you want others to know. There are some tools provided by Microsoft to decrease this hidden data (see http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/assistance/HA010776461033.aspx and http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/assistance/HA010777371033.aspx).

Here is another option to remove metadata when converting a Word document to PDF format, posted by Cindy L. Chick to the LawLibTech blog. The National Security Agency has provided instructions to further reduce metadata: Document on Redaction.