Litigation-hold redaction is the removal of personal information not relevant to a matter from held documents. It meets the DPA 2018 & UK GDPR. anonym.plus runs on your device, so non-party identifiers go while the disclosable facts stay.
When this applies
A hold pulls charts and emails that also mention unrelated patients and staff. Before review by outside solicitors, that non-party information is cleared on-site.
How anonym.plus handles it
- Load the held documents into anonym.plus on your device.
- Local OCR reads scanned correspondence first.
- It flags non-party patient and staff names plus dates.
- Confirm which parties are in scope and keep them.
- Swap or black out the unrelated personal information.
- Save the reviewed set. Source files stay local.
What you need to provide
- The held documents (PDF, DOCX, EML, or scan).
- An operator (Redact for a defensible record).
- Optional list of in-scope parties to keep.
Patient data entity types detected
| Category | anonym.plus entity type | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Patient | PERSON | non-party D. Acos → [THIRD_PARTY] |
| Staff | PERSON | cc’d RN Weiss → [STAFF] |
| Dates | DATE_TIME | email 07/2025 → [DATE] |
| Contact | EMAIL_ADDRESS | rn.weiss@example.nhs.uk → [EMAIL] |
| Record IDs | MEDICAL_RECORD_NUMBER | NHS No. 220 771 4419 → [NHS_NUMBER] |
| Network | IP_ADDRESS | 192.168.4.11 → [IP] |
Compliance achieved
- Meets the DPA 2018 & UK GDPR for non-party records.
- Keeps the relevant parties, so the record stays disclosable.
- Offline work keeps held documents inside the firm.
Anonymise litigation hold documents offline — see plans & start free →
Limitations & cautions
A hold must stay defensible, so never remove information pertinent to the matter. The tool flags personal items; you decide which parties are in scope. Keep a clear log of what was cleared and why, and confirm with solicitors.
Frequently asked questions
Why redact a litigation hold at all?
Held files often mention patients and staff with no link to the matter. Their identifiers can be cleared to limit exposure, while everything pertinent to the case is kept.
Won’t redaction spoil disclosure?
No, if you keep all in-scope parties. The tool lets you mark who stays, so only unrelated names and identifiers go.
Are email headers and IPs handled?
Yes. Addresses, IPs, and timestamps in email are flagged along with names in the body.