Redaction is the covering, blurring or distortion of data in a physical or electronic document to remove personal, sensitive or intellectual property data. Typically this method is used for documents that content relevant information for electronic discovery or for court presentation but also contain sensitive information not related to the actual evidence. Redaction can be accomplished with a stamp or blackout marker for physical documents and is a feature in many data masking solutions (to blackout, blur or distort the original data.
By redacting personal data in physical and electronic documents, these records are effectively anonymized or de-identified to help control the access of personal and/or sensitive information.