Complaint redaction is the removal of identifying personal data from a grievance under UK GDPR Art. 9 & DPA 2018. anonym.plus does this on your own device. The story of what went wrong stays, but it no longer names anyone.
When this applies
A grievance arrives by letter or web form, naming the patient, the staff, and a date. A panel needs the substance, not the people, so the identifiers come out first.
How anonym.plus handles it
- Open the grievance in anonym.plus on your device.
- Local OCR turns scanned letters into searchable text.
- It flags the writer, the named staff, dates, and contacts.
- Confirm the flags and fix any term caught by mistake.
- Swap each identifier for a steady label, or remove it.
- Save the cleaned copy. The source stays on your machine.
What you need to provide
- The grievance (PDF, DOCX, web-form export, or scan).
- An operator (Replace keeps the narrative readable).
- Optional map so one complainant maps to one label.
Patient data entity types detected
| Category | anonym.plus entity type | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Patient | PERSON | Amara Osei → [COMPLAINANT] |
| Staff | PERSON | Dr. Hofer → [STAFF] |
| Dates | DATE_TIME | visit 03/02/2026 → [DATE] |
| Contact | EMAIL_ADDRESS | a.osei@example.com → [EMAIL] |
| Contact | PHONE_NUMBER | +44 20 7946 0812 → [PHONE] |
| Record IDs | MEDICAL_RECORD_NUMBER | NHS No. 485 777 3251 → [NHS_NUMBER] |
Compliance achieved
- Strips identifying details under UK GDPR Art. 9 & DPA 2018.
- Runs offline, so no supplier touches the data.
- Named staff are cleared too, since their data is personal.
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Limitations & cautions
A grievance is free text and often emotional. A writer may give a unique clue, like a job or an exact ward time, that points to one person after names go. Review such lines carefully, and apply the motivated-intruder test where a clue seems rare.
Frequently asked questions
What identifying details must be cleared from a complaint?
Names, NHS numbers, addresses, dates of birth, and contact details are all personal data under the DPA 2018. Free-text lines may also hold indirect identifiers that need review.
Do I need a supplier data-processing agreement for this?
No. The work runs on your own device with no cloud step, so no outside party touches the data and no processor contract is needed.
Can I keep complaints from one person linked?
Yes. A label map gives one complainant the same steady alias across every file.