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Anonymise a document

DocuDesk's anonymisation pipeline detects personal data (names, addresses, BSNs, phone numbers, emails, …) in any uploaded document, lets you review each detection, and produces a redacted copy that is safe to publish under GDPR / Wet Open Overheid.

Goal​

By the end you will have anonymised one document, reviewed the detected entities, accepted or rejected each one, and downloaded the redacted output.

Prerequisites​

  • You have completed Upload a document and have at least one document in the Documents register.
  • The instance has the Presidio anonymisation service configured and reachable (an admin sets this in Settings → DocuDesk → Anonymisation).

Steps​

  1. Open the document detail view and click Anonymise in the action bar.

    Document detail with Anonymise action

  2. DocuDesk extracts entities through the configured anonymisation service. The detection table lists each entity, its type (PERSON, ADDRESS, PHONE_NUMBER, …) and confidence, plus the surrounding text excerpt.

    Anonymisation entity review

  3. Walk through the detections row by row. For each, choose Accept (replace with the entity-type placeholder, e.g. [PERSON]), Reject (keep the original text), or Edit (replace with a custom string).

    Reviewing one entity

  4. Click Apply anonymisation. DocuDesk generates a new redacted document and links it back to the original via the Source document field. Download it from the detail view's Outputs tab.

    Anonymised output ready to download

Verification​

You are done when: the Outputs tab on the source document shows one new entry of type Anonymised, the file can be downloaded, and opening it shows the accepted entities replaced with the chosen placeholder.

Common issues​

SymptomFix
Anonymise action returns "Service unreachable"The Presidio backend isn't running, or its URL in Settings → DocuDesk → Anonymisation points at the wrong host. Restart the service and retry.
Detection table is empty even on a document you know contains namesThe Presidio analyser doesn't recognise the document language — check Settings → DocuDesk → Anonymisation → Languages and enable the relevant pack.
Output document has text overlapping or layout shiftedPDFs with complex layouts can't be redacted in-place; DocuDesk falls back to a plain-text export. For layout-preserving redaction, convert the source to DOCX first.

Reference​