Redaction

The Subject Access Request provisions of the Data Protection Act 1998 and the Freedom of Information [Scotland] Act 2002 may require that documents are released subject to any applicable personal data and possibly other information in those documents being deleted. In many cases, the deletion can be handled by redaction.

Redaction is the blanking out of text in a document such that the receiver of the document cannot determine, even indirectly, the content or scope or meaning of the redacted text. The simplest technique is:

• Take a photocopy of the original document;
• Blank out the relevant text on the photocopy using a felt-tip pen with indelible ink ;
• Take a photocopy of the redacted document - do not release the original redacted copy as it might be possible to decipher the redacted text by holding the document up to the ligtht;
• Release the photocopy of the redacted document.