Redaction is the process of permanently obscuring specific text or content within a document before it is produced or disclosed, to protect privileged information, confidential data, personally identifiable information, or other material that should not be visible to the recipient.
Last reviewed: 2026/05/19
Document production is the process of delivering to opposing parties in litigation or investigation the set of documents that are responsive to discovery requests, non-privileged, and within the scope of the applicable discovery order or agreement.
CapabilityE-discovery (electronic discovery) is the process of identifying, preserving, collecting, reviewing, and producing electronically stored information in response to litigation, investigations, or regulatory demands.
CapabilityPrivilege review is the process of examining documents in an e-discovery collection to identify and withhold materials protected by attorney-client privilege, work product doctrine, or other applicable privileges before production to opposing parties.
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Last reviewed: 2026/05/19. Definitions are written by the LawyerAI Editorial team. Commercial relationships are disclosed and do not determine editorial scores or conclusions. See our Sponsorship & Affiliate Disclosure.
Redaction is the process of permanently obscuring specific text or content within a document before it is produced or disclosed, to protect privileged information, confidential data, personally identifiable information, or other material that should not be visible to the recipient.
Redaction errors have serious consequences. Improperly redacted documents — where sensitive text is "redacted" using formatting that can be removed by the recipient — have created significant legal, competitive, and reputational harm in high-profile cases. A 2021 example involved a court filing where redacted text was accessible by copying the document; the "redacted" content became publicly available before the error was caught.
Technically proper redaction requires permanently removing or obscuring the text from the document file itself, not merely covering it with a black box in a way that allows digital extraction. This requires purpose-built redaction tools, not standard word processor features.
In discovery, redactions are appropriate for: privileged portions of an otherwise responsive document; personally identifiable information protected by applicable privacy law or court order; confidential non-party information; and other specifically protected categories defined in the applicable protective order.
Each redaction must have a legal basis — producing parties cannot redact simply because they would prefer the information not be seen. Opposing parties can challenge improper redactions, and courts routinely examine challenged redactions in camera.
AI-assisted redaction tools can significantly accelerate redaction of high-volume document sets by identifying and proposing redactions for defined sensitive categories. Relativity AI and Everlaw include AI-assisted redaction features that can flag all instances of defined identifiers — Social Security numbers, financial account numbers, specific named individuals, or attorney names — across thousands of documents, with human review confirming each proposed redaction.
For privilege-based redactions, the same AI privilege detection features used in privilege review feed into the redaction workflow: the attorney reviews AI-identified potentially privileged segments and approves or rejects the proposed redaction.
Most AI redaction tools operate by marking proposed redaction areas for human review rather than automatically applying redactions without review. This is the correct approach given the legal significance of redaction decisions. Fully automated redaction without attorney review would expose the producing party to the risk of improper redactions that fail to protect privileged content or that improperly obscure responsive information.
Proper redaction using e-discovery platform tools "burns" the redaction into the produced document file, preventing extraction of the obscured text by the recipient.