PDF Redaction Failures Exposed: Why Your Sensitive Data Might Be ‘Naked’

The Illusion of Privacy: Why Your PDF Redactions Might Be Leaving Data “Naked” In an era defined by data transparency and digital accountability, we have a dangerous habit of trusting what we see—or rather, what we can’t see. When you see a heavy black rectangle covering a name or a social security number in a legal document, you assume that information is gone. At Free Law Project, we’ve spent years collecting millions of PDFs, and we’ve discovered a disturbing reality: many redactions are merely digital theater. Instead of permanently removing sensitive data, users often just draw a black box over …