Get this — around 327.77 million terabytes of data is collected daily, and this year alone, 120 zettabytes of data will be generated. This unprecedented hike has increased reliance on PII Redaction to ensure confidential and sensitive data privacy.
You see, it becomes next to impossible to manually remove sensitive information from the wealth of data within documents, audio, videos, and other digital media files.
And to not breach customer trust and abide by mandated data protection compliances, companies (healthcare, finance, transportation, insurance, call centers, etc.), governmental organizations, law enforcement agencies, and other legal entities must ensure all shared data gives away what is required and nothing else.
In the wrong hands, PII information can be used to narrow down one’s individuality and use it for identity theft and unauthorized card transactions, among other fraudulent activities.
To make matters worse — upholding privacy has gotten much difficult as data breaches have consistently increased, and so are the financial costs associated with them. According to IBM, the global cost of a data breach averaged $4.45 million in 2023.
Among the huge pile of data generated lies a significant share of personally identifiable information (PII).
Because of the highly sensitive nature of PII, various PII redaction artificial intelligence (AI) models and APIs have emerged in the market.
This blog will delve into the best PII redaction AI models and APIs for 2023 and beyond.
What is PII Redaction?
PII redaction refers to the act of simply concealing or hiding sensitive information that, if revealed, could be used to identify an individual or an entity.
Usually, this is achieved by blurring, pixelating, or placing a black box on the sensitive data to protect its integrity.
For a better understanding, check out our blog titled “All You Need to Know about PII Redaction”
What PII Needs to be Redacted?
Faces, license plate numbers, names of individuals and organizations, locations, zip codes, social security numbers (SSNs), taxpayer identification numbers, credit card details, phone numbers, etc., are all examples of PII.
In today’s digital landscape, redacting personally identifiable information (PII) is as essential as breathing. In short, there is no survival without it.
Why PII Redaction is Important?
We are living in a privacy-aware world. With the rise of new and emerging technologies, data privacy challenges have also seen an uptick.
Every day, users enter their personal information to conduct transactions, including their names, locations, email addresses, financial information, and more.
Not only this but various laws and compliances have tightened the noose around organizations when it comes to upholding data privacy and protection.
Laws such as the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), and Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) have resulted in an increased focus on ensuring the integrity of personal data kept within databases.
5 Best PII Redaction Models and APIs
Following is the list of the best PII redaction models and APIs for 2023 and beyond in no particular order:
1. Amazon Transcribe
Amazon Transcribe is an artificial intelligence (AI) service for converting speech into text. The API replaces the sensitive transcribed text with a [PII] tag.
Leveraging automatic speech recognition (ASR), the Amazon Transcribe PII redaction API can automatically detect and redact the following PII from conversation transcripts in more than 35 languages, including French, German, and Spanish:
- Physical addresses
- Bank account numbers
- US bank accounting numbers
- Credit and debit card information
- Email addresses
- Phone numbers
- PIN codes
- Social Security Numbers (SSNs)
2. Azure AI Language
Azure AI Language’s Conversational PII feature holds the capability to detect sensitive information found in transcripts.
Moreover, users can redact audio segments containing PII by defining the start and end time of the audio segment. Currently, with support for the English language, the model can automatically detect the following PII:
- Names of individuals and organizations
- Phone numbers
- Email addresses
- IP addresses
- Physical addresses
- Date and time
- Age
- URLs
- Medical information
3. Super Redact
Super Redact by Super.ai offers a comprehensive API for PII redaction in a variety of media types, including videos, images, and documents.
The API leverages pseudonymization to replace the sensitive text with fictional characters. Super Redact leverages AI to automatically detect the following PII:
- Faces
- License plates
- Brand logos
- Names
- Birth dates
- Phone numbers
- Credit card numbers
- Social Security Numbers (SSNs)
- PII in handwritten notes
4. PrivateAI
With PrivateAI, users can redact 50+ entities of PII from multiple media types, including images, audio recordings, transcripts, and PDF documents in more than 52 languages. Some of these PII entities are as follows:
- Physical addresses
- Age
- Bank account numbers
- Blood type
- Credit card information
- Birth dates
- IP addresses
- Healthcare numbers
5. AssemblyAI
AssemblyAI allows users to redact PII from transcript text in 9 languages, including English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Dutch, Hindi, and Japanese. The redacted text is replaced by “#” characters to avoid the reversal of redaction.
The following PII entities can be redacted via AssemblyAI:
- Email addresses
- Birth dates
- Phone numbers
- Social Security Numbers (SSNs)
- Credit card numbers
- Religion
- Bank details
- Names
- Age
- Location
- Language
- Blood type
VIDIZMO Redactor for PII Redaction
VIDIZMO Redactor is your go-to solution for PII redaction, you can leverage its cutting-edge Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology to redact PII.
Moreover, the following capaiblities and many more make VIDIZMO Redactor one of the best PII Redaction software on the market:
- Automatic PII redaction to ensure confidentiality of information
- Ability to redact names, phone numbers, credit card details, zip codes, etc., from documents
- Create your own PII redaction rules using regular expressions for pattern-based redaction
- Ability to redact faces, people, and license plates from videos and images
- Audio redaction for redacting sensitive audio segments and transcription-based audio redaction
- Redaction confidence score to ensure the utmost redaction of personally identifiable information (PII).
Claim your Trial
Ensuring data privacy and PII redaction go hand in hand. With the multitude of personal information being uploaded daily, it becomes more than essential for organizations to leverage robust PII redaction AI models and APIs to uphold data integrity.
That said, do you want to pay a hefty compensation for not complying with privacy laws? Certainly not. Sign up for a 7-day free trial of VIDIZMO Redactor to avoid harsh consequences.
Posted by Rafey Iqbal Rahman
Rafey is a Product Marketing Analyst at VIDIZMO and holds expertise in enterprise video content management, digital evidence management, and redaction technologies. He actively researches tech industries to keep up with the trends. For any queries, feel free to reach out to websales@vidizmo.com