Remove PII Before Using LLMs

What Is PII?

PII stands for Personally Identifiable Information.

This includes any information that can identify a person directly or indirectly.

Common examples of PII include:

full names
email addresses
phone numbers
home addresses
passport or ID numbers
customer IDs
IBANs and bank details
medical information
support tickets containing personal data
internal business information linked to individuals

In many real-world documents, multiple types of PII appear together.

Why PII Matters When Using LLMs

Large Language Models (LLMs) such as ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Copilot, Grok and other AI assistants are increasingly used for:

summarizing documents
rewriting emails
analyzing support requests
extracting information
translation
research
draft generation
coding assistance

To use these systems, people often paste raw text directly into AI chatbots or generative AI platforms.

The problem is that these texts frequently contain sensitive personal or confidential information.

Users may unintentionally share private data, customer information, patient details, internal documents or legally protected information with external AI systems.

Examples of Sensitive Data Inside LLM Prompts

Sensitive information inside prompts can include:

customer conversations
medical records
contracts
support tickets
employee communication
legal documents
financial data
research material
private messages

Even seemingly harmless text may contain hidden identifiers that can expose individuals or confidential business information.

A Safer Workflow Before Using AI

A safer workflow before using LLMs is:

Detect sensitive information automatically
Redact, anonymize or pseudonymize the text
Use the cleaned version with AI systems
Restore pseudonymized placeholders locally afterwards if needed

This helps reduce privacy, security and compliance risks while still keeping the text useful for AI-assisted tasks.

Example

Original Text

Customer Sarah Johnson from London contacted support regarding account AC-48372.
Her email is [email protected] and her phone number is +44 7700 900123.

Pseudonymized Version

Customer [PERSON_1] from [LOCATION_1] contacted support regarding account [SECRET_1].
Her email is [EMAIL_1] and her phone number is [PHONE_1].

The important context remains intact while personally identifiable information is removed.

Why Local PII Removal Matters

Many anonymization or AI privacy tools require users to upload documents or text to a cloud service.

For sensitive data, this can itself create privacy or compliance concerns.

Redaxa works locally on your own PC.

No cloud processing. No external AI required. No document uploads.

This makes Redaxa suitable for:

GDPR-sensitive workflows
legal and healthcare environments
research institutions
business communication
users working with confidential documents
preparing text before using LLMs or AI assistants

Prepare Text Safely Before Using AI

Redaxa helps users prepare text safely before sending it to ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Copilot, Grok or other LLMs.

detect PII automatically
highlight sensitive information
redact personal data
anonymize or pseudonymize text
prepare prompts safely before using AI systems

The application works locally and supports multiple languages.