Chapter 23 — RedactPro
Based on: SIH1678 — Data Redaction and Privacy Protection Framework
Organization: National Technical Research Organisation (NTRO)
Category: Cybersecurity – Data Privacy and Protection
Skills Required
- Natural Language Processing (NLP)
- Text mining and pattern recognition
- Privacy regulations and compliance (GDPR, PDPA)
- Python (NLTK, spaCy, Transformers)
- Web and API development (Flask/FastAPI)
- Database design (SQL/NoSQL)
- Security and access control
Project Description
RedactPro is an intelligent data redaction and privacy protection platform designed to automatically detect and redact sensitive personal information (PII) in documents and communications. Leveraging advanced NLP models and rule-based heuristics, it identifies confidential data such as names, IDs, addresses, financial information, and health records. The platform supports real-time stream processing and batch scanning with customizable policies, ensuring privacy compliance across enterprise workflows.
Tech Stack
- Python NLP libraries (spaCy, Transformers)
- Regex and rule-based extraction engine
- FastAPI backend framework
- React or Vue.js for user interface
- PostgreSQL or Elasticsearch for indexing and search
- Kubernetes/Docker for deployment and scaling
Week-wise Plan
Week 1 — Requirements and Dataset Collection
- Define types of sensitive information to redact based on regulatory requirements.
- Collect datasets of sample documents, emails, chat logs for model training and testing.
- Deliverable: Requirements document and baseline datasets.
Week 2 — NLP Pipeline and Rule Engine
- Build preprocessing pipeline: tokenization, normalization, sentence splitting.
- Implement rule-based regex detectors for structured data (emails, SSNs, phone numbers).
- Deliverable: Functional NLP and regex modules for sensitive data detection.
Week 3 — Named Entity Recognition (NER) Model Development
- Train and fine-tune NER models for unstructured PII detection using spaCy or Transformers.
- Annotate datasets to improve model accuracy.
- Deliverable: Custom NER models with evaluation metrics.
Week 4 — Policy Definition and Customization Module
- Design policy framework allowing users to specify redaction levels and exceptions.
- Develop user interface for policy creation and management.
- Deliverable: Policy management system.
Week 5 — Real-time Stream Processing
- Integrate streaming data processing to handle real-time message redaction.
- Ensure low-latency detection and redaction pipelines.
- Deliverable: Real-time redaction capability.
Week 6 — Batch Scanning and Reporting
- Implement batch processing for large document collections.
- Develop reporting engine providing compliance status and audit trails.
- Deliverable: Batch scanner and reporting dashboard.
Week 7 — Role-Based Access and Security Controls
- Implement authentication and authorization mechanisms for users and admins.
- Ensure secure data storage, transmission, and user activity logging.
- Deliverable: Secure access control modules.
Week 8 — Testing, Validation, and Documentation
- Conduct end-to-end testing on diverse datasets and simulate compliance audits.
- Optimize performance and reduce false positives/negatives.
- Prepare comprehensive documentation: deployment, user guide, developer API.
- Deliverable: Production-ready RedactPro platform.
Testing and Deliverables
- Validate on healthcare, financial, and government document samples.
- Monitor precision, recall, and compliance coverage.
- Provide source code repository, trained models, compliance reports, and video demos.
RedactPro empowers organizations to enforce data privacy policies automatically, helping prevent sensitive data leakage and ensuring regulatory compliance efficiently.