Checking a document for personal data

What this does

Task menu ▸ Anonymize ▸ Check for Personal Data

Reads the text and points out passages containing personal details. The findings appear as comments in the document.

Useful before handing a document on, before publication, or as preparation for anonymising it.

What gets checked

If you have text selected, that is what is checked. With nothing selected the add-in asks: "You have not selected any text. Do you instead want to analyze text from a document file or Powerpoint presentation?"

• Yes – you pick a file. Its content is inserted into a new Word document; the add-in then asks whether to continue with the check. The original is not modified.
• No, continue with this text – the whole open document is checked.

The result is a pointer, not a finding

What counts as personal here is decided by a language model on the basis of general understanding – not by your data-protection documentation and not by the context your document sits in.

Expect the following:

• A detail is missed that only becomes identifying in combination with others – a role plus a department plus a date.
• File references, personnel numbers or internal codes are not recognised, although in your organisation they point straight at a person.
• Conversely, something is flagged that concerns no real person at all.

The check is therefore an aid to your own review. It is not a data-protection clearance, and a document with no comments is not thereby unproblematic.

Afterwards

The comments show you where to look. To actually remove things, use one of the anonymisation features in the same menu afterwards – or edit the passages by hand.

When nothing happens

If nothing changes after you invoke it and no message appears, the operation aborted in the background. Try again with a smaller selection; if it persists, contact support.