Recent research into popular PDF redaction tools has revealed that even the most popular ones don't redact properly. The research was conducted by researchers at the University of Illinois who said that two of the most widely used tools for PDF redaction offered zero protection for the underlying text at all, reports WIRED.
All the text in the "redacted" documents could be made visible by simply copying and pasting it from the PDF into another document.
The research further revealed that thousands of publicly available documents — including many from the US court system — did not properly redact information such as people's names and other sensitive information.
Such redaction failures can lead to anything from personal security concerns to high-profile blunders, such as when the EU published an improperly redacted version of its AstraZeneca vaccine rollout contract which inadvertently revealed that the contract was worth €870 million.
The two major problems with PDF online redaction
The two biggest problems with online PDF redaction tools are that they either:
- Don't work properly or
- Are too expensive for the average user
There are plenty of free tools around that could end up costing you more in fines and penalties than if you went with a reasonably priced service that works. The trick is finding such a service.
Not even offline redaction works excellently
You could always redact a file offline before sending it around. This would be done by printing the file, using a thick black marker, and then rescanning it. But even this can't be guaranteed to provide full redaction, and it has limited usefulness.
Specifically:
- With extremely high-resolution cameras, sometimes it is possible to determine the writing underneath a felt-tip pen. This is because the writing is not precisely the same color as that used by the pen which does not really cover the text but only makes it very difficult for the human eye to see because of the poor contrast between the text and the felt-tip pen.
- This solution is terribly unwieldy. As technology progresses more and more to a digital-only world, printing will likely eventually become a thing of the past.
- The original, unredacted document will still remain on your computer and this opens the door to potential breaches.
Sophisticated PDF redaction using AINON.ai
AINON.ai was developed by a team of PDF experts to provide:
- A robust online PDF redaction tool that properly redacts all PDFs.
- A useful tool that can help users find text in a PDF through advanced AI and search functions.
Click here to sign up for your free Ainon PDF redaction account today!
