Witness interview memo redaction is the removal of personal data from an interview write-up. In Three Rivers District Council v Governor and Company of the Bank of England (No 5) [2004] EWCA Civ 218, the Court of Appeal held that legal advice privilege only protects communications with the individuals actually authorised to instruct and receive advice on the client's behalf — so an ordinary interview memo does not automatically attract it. Litigation privilege can apply instead once proceedings are reasonably in contemplation, per Serious Fraud Office v Eurasian Natural Resources Corp Ltd [2018] EWCA Civ 2006. anonym.plus runs locally and keeps the account that makes the record useful, whatever the privilege position turns out to be.
When this applies
Investigators write memos that quote people by name, sometimes for an SFO- or FCA-facing internal investigation. To share these for review, you must clear the interviewee and anyone else named in the text.
How anonym.plus handles it
- Open the memo in anonym.plus on your device.
- The tool flags the interviewee, the interviewer, and named parties.
- It scans quotes and the header, not just the body.
- Swap each confirmed name for a steady label.
- Save the clean record on your device.
What you need to provide
- The memo (DOCX, PDF, or transcript).
- An operator (Replace keeps the account readable).
- Optional role map for [WITNESS] / [INTERVIEWER] labels.
PII entity types detected
| Category | anonym.plus entity type | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Names | PERSON | witness Sophie Clarke → [WITNESS] |
| Names | PERSON | interviewer → [INTERVIEWER] |
| Contact | PHONE_NUMBER | 0161 555 2211 → [PHONE] |
| Dates | DATE_TIME | 18 Apr → [DATE] |
| Location | LOCATION | meeting room 4B → [LOCATION] |
| Identifiers | UK_NINO | staff no. → [ID] |
Compliance achieved
- Anonymous output sits outside scope by UK GDPR Recital 26.
- Local work keeps the memo off any cloud step while its privilege status under Three Rivers (No 5) [2004] EWCA Civ 218 and SFO v ENRC [2018] EWCA Civ 2006 is assessed separately.
- On-device AES-256-GCM guards the working files.
- Special category data under UK GDPR Art. 9 is flagged too.
Anonymise interview memos offline — see plans & start free →
Limitations & cautions
A person can be named indirectly by a role or a unique event. Review the quotes for such clues. The tool flags named people but cannot tell when a story detail alone gives someone away, and it does not decide the memo's privilege status.
Frequently asked questions
Is a witness interview memo automatically privileged?
Not automatically. Three Rivers (No 5) confined legal advice privilege to communications with the individuals actually instructed to seek or receive advice, so an ordinary interview note can fall outside it. It may still attract litigation privilege if SFO v ENRC's dominant-purpose test for anticipated adversarial proceedings is met — a question for your lawyers, not this tool.
Are quoted names caught inside the text?
Yes. The tool scans the body, the quotes, and the header, so a name in a quote is flagged the same as one in a field.
Can I keep the same individual consistent across memos?
Yes. A role map maps one person to one steady label across every document.