Drawing Black Rectangles Over PDF Text Does Not Remove Sensitive Data

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Placing a black rectangle over text in a PDF only visually conceals the content — the underlying text often remains selectable, searchable, and extractable. True redaction requires removing the sensitive content from the document entirely, not merely covering it with a shape. A reproducible test using synthetic personal data, including fake email addresses, phone numbers, and card numbers, demonstrated this vulnerability using a browser-based redaction tool called PriviTools PDF Auto-Redactor. The tool rasterized the document after review, successfully removing the text layer and making the test markers inaccessible in the downloaded copy. Experts recommend verifying any redacted PDF by searching for known values, extracting its text layer, and inspecting metadata and annotations before sharing the file.

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