How to Safely Use AI with Sensitive Data
Your data never leaves your browser. Here's how Redactli uses a fundamentally different approach to protect sensitive information—one that eliminates risk at the source.
The Core Principle
Most data protection tools work by securing data after it leaves your control. Redactli works by ensuring sensitive data never leaves your browser in the first place.
When you upload a CSV to Redactli:
- Your file stays local. The raw CSV is processed entirely in your browser.
- Only column values are sent for anonymization. Not your file. Not the structure. Just the specific values that need protection.
- You receive anonymized data back. Sensitive values are replaced with human-readable tokens like 'Name_a3b7c9d2', 'Email_k9m2p4x7', making it easy to reference specific entries in AI conversations.
- You use the safe version with any AI tool. Paste it into ChatGPT, Claude, or any other service without risk.
The result: AI tools see realistic-looking data that protects the real people behind it.
What Gets Anonymized (and How)
Redactli applies different protection methods based on data type
Names → Human-Readable Tokens
“Sarah Chen” becomes “Name_a3b7c9d2”
Encrypted values formatted as readable tokens, making it easy to reference specific people in AI conversations.
Email Addresses → Tokenized Format
“sarah.chen@company.com” becomes “Email_k9m2p4x7”
Encrypted as readable tokens while keeping identity fully protected.
Phone Numbers → Tokenized Values
“+61 412 345 678” becomes “Phone_m7n3q8r2”
Encrypted as human-readable tokens for easy reference.
Addresses → Tokenized Format
“42 Collins Street, Melbourne” becomes “Address_x5y9z3w1”
Encrypted as readable tokens while protecting actual locations.
Financial Data → Transformed Values
Account numbers, credit card numbers, and financial identifiers
Replaced with valid-format alternatives that protect actual account details.
Custom Fields → Flexible Handling
You choose which columns to anonymize
Leave non-sensitive data unchanged while protecting PII columns.
Why Anonymization, Not Encryption?
Encryption protects data from being read, but AI tools need to read your data to be useful. Encrypted data is meaningless to ChatGPT.
Anonymization takes a different approach: it transforms data so it can be read and analysed, but the real identities are protected.
| Feature | Raw Data | Encryption | Anonymization |
|---|---|---|---|
AI Can Process? | |||
Identity Protected? | |||
Maintains Data Relationships | |||
Safe for AI Upload |
Redactli gives you the best of both worlds: data that AI can work with, identities that remain protected.
Deterministic Anonymization
A key feature of Redactli's approach is deterministic anonymization. This means the same input always produces the same output.
Why does this matter?
Consistency across analyses
If “John Smith” appears 47 times in your dataset, he becomes “Robert Johnson” 47 times. Your analysis remains valid.
Referential integrity
Foreign key relationships survive anonymization. Customer IDs in your orders table still match customer IDs in your customers table.
Technical note: This is achieved using AES-SIV (Synthetic Initialization Vector) encryption, which provides deterministic, authenticated encryption. The encrypted output is formatted as human-readable tokens (like 'Name_a3b7c9d2') instead of random strings, making it easy to reference in AI conversations.
Step-by-Step Workflow
How Redactli protects your data in practice
Anonymize
Upload and anonymize your CSV with Redactli
Upload to AI
Upload the safe version to ChatGPT, Claude, or any AI tool
Get Insights
Get AI-generated insights, summaries, and recommendations safely
The AI never sees real data. You get real, actionable insights.
See use cases like HR teams analysing employee surveys and sales teams getting customer insights.
Step-by-Step: Protecting Your Data
Follow these steps to safely use AI with sensitive data
Upload Your CSV File
Click “Upload CSV” or drag and drop your file. Redactli uses Papa Parse to process your CSV entirely in your browser—no data is sent to our servers at this stage.
Select Columns to Anonymize
Review your column headers. Redactli automatically suggests columns that appear to contain PII (names, emails, phone numbers, addresses). Select or deselect as needed.
Anonymize the Data
Click “Anonymize” to transform selected columns. Only the values from these columns are sent to our secure API for encryption using AES-SIV. The encrypted values are returned as human-readable tokens like 'Name_a3b7c9d2' and 'Email_k9m2p4x7', then merged back into your CSV client-side.
Download and Use with AI
Download your anonymized CSV. You can now safely upload it to ChatGPT, Claude, Google Bard, or any AI tool. The AI will see realistic data while real identities remain protected.
Ready to Protect Your Data?
Join businesses using Redactli to safely leverage AI tools without compromising customer privacy. Start anonymizing your data in minutes.