Redact PDF for FOIA & Public Records Requests — Privacy Exemptions
Prepare documents for FOIA and public records release: remove personal data under privacy exemptions. True redaction in your browser, no upload.
Drop a PDF here or click to upload
Files stay on your device. Max 50 MB.
Why this needs true redaction
Public records laws balance transparency against privacy. FOIA exemption (b)(6) protects personnel and medical files where disclosure would be a clearly unwarranted invasion of privacy; (b)(7)(C) does the same for law enforcement records. State sunshine laws have parallel provisions. Releasing a document with a home address, SSN or medical detail left in is not transparency — it is a privacy breach that can harm a bystander.
Government agencies have made this mistake at scale: the TSA published a screening manual with removable black boxes, and the EU published a contract with confidential figures surviving in the PDF bookmarks. If professionals with legal staff get it wrong, a requester publishing documents on a personal blog needs to be even more careful.
Journalists and researchers also redact in the other direction: documents received through FOIA often contain unredacted personal data that should be removed before publication. The standard is the same — delete, sanitize, verify.
Step by step
- 1
Drop the records PDF
Opens locally in your browser — unreleased records never touch a server.
- 2
Run pattern presets
Enable SSN, email, phone and card presets and click 'Find matches' — identifiers across all pages are marked in one pass.
- 3
Search names and addresses
Search each third party's name, home address and any case or medical record numbers individually.
- 4
Cover scans and handwriting
Older records are often scans with stamps and handwritten notes — draw rectangles over anything the search cannot see.
- 5
Apply, verify, release
Content is deleted, metadata and bookmarks scrubbed, and the output re-searched. Release only after 'Verified: 0 matches remain'.
Checklist: what to redact, what to keep
Redact this
- Names and home addresses of private individuals (exemption b(6) / b(7)(C) territory)
- SSNs, dates of birth and medical details
- Personal phone numbers and email addresses
- Names of minors and victims
- Law enforcement techniques or informant details, where applicable
- Third-party data that slipped in unredacted from the agency
Keep this visible
- Names of public officials acting in their official capacity
- Agency names, dates of correspondence and subject matter
- Everything the public has a legitimate interest in — redact privacy, not accountability
Frequently asked questions
Which FOIA exemptions cover personal privacy?▼
Exemption (b)(6) covers personnel, medical and similar files where disclosure would be a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy. Exemption (b)(7)(C) protects personal information in law enforcement records. State public records laws have their own equivalents.
I received FOIA documents with unredacted personal data. Should I re-redact before publishing?▼
Yes — agencies occasionally release more than they should. Removing bystanders' home addresses, SSNs and medical details before publication protects those people and reduces your own legal exposure.
The records are old scans with handwritten notes. Can the tool handle them?▼
Search only works on text layers, so for scans you draw manual rectangles over sensitive areas. Redaction removes the image content under each region permanently.
Can redaction be challenged or reversed by the recipient?▼
The redaction itself cannot be reversed — the content is deleted from the file, not covered. Whether a redaction was legally justified is a separate question handled through appeals, not technology.
Does the tool also clean metadata before release?▼
Yes. Every apply scrubs Info/XMP metadata, annotations, embedded files, JavaScript and bookmarks, then rebuilds the document — metadata leaks are a classic release-day mistake.
Related
Redact PDF
The main redaction tool: search, regex presets, manual regions and automatic verification for any PDF.
Redact Bank Statement
Permanently remove account numbers, transaction details, names and addresses from bank statement PDFs. Free, in your browser, no upload.
Redact SSN
Remove Social Security Numbers from any PDF permanently. Search by SSN pattern or draw boxes. Browser-based, no upload, no sign-up.
Redact Medical Records
Remove PHI from medical record PDFs: names, DOB, MRN, diagnoses, provider info. True redaction in browser, no upload.
Redact Email Addresses
Find and permanently remove every email address in a PDF with pattern search. True redaction in your browser, no upload, no sign-up.
Redact Legal Documents
Redact court filings, contracts and discovery documents correctly: SSNs, account numbers, minors' names, DOBs. True redaction in your browser, no upload.
Guide: how to redact a PDF properly
Why black boxes fail, the attacker's checklist and the full sanitization checklist — with an interactive demo.