Case Study: Secretary of the Commonwealth protects constituents by redacting SSNs with Extract Systems ID Shield

Redaction technology protects constituents by removing Social Security Numbers from commercial loan records

The Secretary of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts needed to protect constituents’ privacy while still keeping publicly filed commercial loan records accessible online. Because many UCC filings from 2001 to 2005 contained Social Security Numbers, the office needed a way to quickly identify and secure sensitive information across hundreds of thousands of documents. Extract Systems’ ID Shield redaction software was used to address this challenge.

Extract Systems implemented ID Shield to automatically locate and redact Social Security Numbers in the loan records, using OCR and data-detection rules to process both structured and unstructured documents. The solution enabled the office to cost effectively redact sensitive data while preserving public access to records, and it eliminated hidden metadata by burning in redaction zones. According to the case study, more than 5,000 filings per year contained SSNs, and the technology helped protect identity information without altering the original documents.

Secretary of the Commonwealth