Automatically and permanently redact sensitive information
AI-powered redaction technology identifies and permanently removes sensitive information from documents. Automate compliance and data protection workflows with accurate, efficient redaction — no manual effort required.
REDACTION EVOLUTION
From manual to smart redaction
Redaction has evolved from manual, error-prone work to intelligent automation that identifies and removes sensitive data with precision, even in scanned and complex documents.
Manual redaction
Manual redaction is still common in daily office work, but it’s time-consuming, error-prone, and difficult to scale, because the process relies entirely on human review:
- Search for sensitive information visually
- Manually select regions to redact
Search and redact
OCR-powered redaction is faster and more accurate. Regular expressions (regex) enable pattern-based searches — useful when you know what to redact, like social security or phone numbers.
However, traditional OCR struggles with scanned documents and often misses information in tables and graphics. Manual verification is still required to ensure complete redaction.
Smart redaction
GdPicture.NET’s smart redaction engine goes further with natural language processing and computer vision.
Faster workflows
Redact more content in less time with streamlined, automated processing.
Context awareness
The engine identifies types of information, not just specific text patterns — enabling broader, more comprehensive redaction.
Automatic redaction
No manual region selection required. Works on scanned, low-quality, and skewed documents. Finds data in complex forms, mixed text backgrounds, and rotated text.
Built for automation
Automatically detects credit card numbers, email addresses, IBANs, phone numbers, URIs, VAT IDs, VINs, SSNs, and more — ready for batch processing.
INDUSTRIES
Smart redaction use cases
Banking and finance
Insurance
Healthcare
Government
HR
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How to use
Download and install the GdPicture.NET package to access compiled demo applications and multi-language sample projects with full source code.
Explore demo apps
Find compiled demo applications in
\Samples\Bin\.Explore multi-language source code
Find C# and VB.NET demo apps and source code in
\Samples\WinForm\.Visit reference guide
Explore other code snippets within the online reference guide.
Example of usage
This example loads a PDF document, removes sensitive information such as credit card numbers and email addresses, and then saves the redacted file as a PDF.
using GdPicturePDF gdpicturePDF = new GdPicturePDF();// Load the source document.gdpicturePDF.LoadFromFile(@"C:\temp\source.pdf");// Configure the redaction process.GdPicturePDF.SmartRedactionOptions redactionOptions = new GdPicturePDF.SmartRedactionOptions() { ResourcePath = @"C:\GdPicture.NET 14\Redist\OCR", RedactCreditCardNumbers = true, RedactEmailAddresses = true, RedactIBANs = true, RedactPhoneNumbers = true, RedactSocialSecurityNumbers = true, RedactURIs = true, RedactVatIDs = true, RedactVehicleIdentificationNumbers = true, RedactPostalAddresses = true };// Run the redaction process.gdpicturePDF.SmartRedaction(redactionOptions);// Save the output in a PDF document.gdpicturePDF.SaveToFile(@"C:\temp\output.pdf");Using gdpicturePDF As GdPicturePDF = New GdPicturePDF() ' Load the source document. gdpicturePDF.LoadFromFile("C:\temp\source.pdf") ' Configure the redaction process. Dim redactionOptions As GdPicturePDF.SmartRedactionOptions = New GdPicturePDF.SmartRedactionOptions() With { .ResourcePath = "C:\GdPicture.NET 14\Redist\OCR", .RedactCreditCardNumbers = True, .RedactEmailAddresses = True, .RedactIBANs = True, .RedactPhoneNumbers = True, .RedactSocialSecurityNumbers = True, .RedactURIs = True, .RedactVatIDs = True, .RedactVehicleIdentificationNumbers = True, .RedactPostalAddresses = True } ' Run the redaction process. gdpicturePDF.SmartRedaction(redactionOptions) ' Save the output in a PDF document. gdpicturePDF.SaveToFile("C:\temp\output.pdf")End UsingTrusted by 3,000+ customers and Fortune 500 companies
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Frequently asked questions
How does the smart redaction engine identify sensitive information within documents?
The smart redaction engine uses a hybrid approach combining natural language processing (NLP), computer vision, and pattern recognition to identify sensitive information. Unlike traditional OCR-based redaction that only searches for specific text patterns, the smart redaction engine understands context and can identify various types of sensitive data, including credit card numbers, social security numbers, IBANs, phone numbers, email addresses, URLs, VAT IDs, vehicle identification numbers, and postal addresses.
The engine works on both digital and scanned documents, automatically detecting and marking sensitive information for redaction without requiring manual region selection or predefined templates.
Is the smart redaction engine effective on scanned or low-quality documents?
Yes. The smart redaction engine is specifically designed to handle challenging document conditions. It works effectively on scanned documents, low-quality images, and skewed documents where traditional OCR-based redaction often fails.
The engine can find sensitive data in complex scenarios, including:
- Complex forms — Data embedded in forms with mixed backgrounds and overlapping elements
- Rotated text — Text at various angles within the document
- Poor-quality scans — Documents with noise, artifacts, or compression issues
- Tables and graphics — Information embedded in structured layouts that traditional OCR struggles to process
Can the smart redaction engine process multiple documents simultaneously?
Yes. The smart redaction engine is built for automation and supports batch processing of multiple documents. You can configure the redaction settings once and apply them to entire document sets, making it ideal for high-volume document processing workflows.
The engine maintains consistent redaction quality across all documents in a batch, ensuring sensitive information is reliably identified and permanently removed, regardless of document volume.
What file formats are compatible with the smart redaction engine?
The smart redaction engine works with PDF documents, which is the most common format for document workflows requiring redaction. It processes both native PDF files and scanned documents that have been converted to PDF format.
The engine integrates with GdPicture.NET’s comprehensive document processing capabilities, which support more than 100 file formats. You can convert documents from various formats to PDF, apply smart redaction, and save the redacted results in the required output format.
How does the smart redaction engine ensure the permanence of redacted information?
The smart redaction engine performs permanent, irreversible redaction by completely removing the sensitive content from the document structure, and not just visually obscuring it. When information is redacted:
- The original text and data are permanently deleted from the document
- Redacted areas are replaced with solid black boxes or specified colors
- The redacted content cannot be recovered through any means, including text extraction or optical analysis
- Metadata and hidden document properties containing sensitive information are also removed
This ensures full compliance with data protection regulations like GDPR and HIPAA, along with other privacy standards that require permanent deletion of sensitive information.
Does Nutrient use the same smart redaction engine in GdPicture.NET as in its other SDKs?
Yes. GdPicture.NET sits within the Nutrient product suite, and the AI-powered smart redaction technology is consistent across Nutrient’s desktop, web, and mobile SDKs, providing reliable entity detection and content removal across platforms.
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