Xerox researchers at Palo Alto Research Center have unveiled software technology that automates the removal of sensitive or confidential information from documents.

The new software called “Intelligent Redaction,” which is still in development, allows users to mark portions of documents as sensitive information. After users have identified the sensitive information, the software will redact the information.

In addition, the software also will automatically take out all references to the sensitive information within the document. Likewise, after information has been classified, the protected information as well as all the references to that information will be automatically redacted in other documents.

Jessica Staddon, manager of the security research area at PARC, stressed the failure of the existing solutions to protect sensitive data in the documents.

“The tools available today can’t provide sufficient content analysis and security because it’s difficult to determine what is sensitive,” Staddon told IT News Online. “In a large organization the level of sensitivity changes depending on the person accessing the document. The sheer numbers of documents to be tracked and sorted further complicates the problem.”

Xerox claimed that the entire process saves time, increases redaction accuracy and ensures a consistent level of security.

However, the company failed to disclose when the new software will be available to the market.

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Entry was posted on Tuesday, October 16th, 2007 at 3:23 am under Technology.

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