Manafort’s “Redacted” Filing
There are many ways to redact a document. We’ve highlighted some of them in previous blogs. It seems though, that this is something people struggle with over and over again, often in high profile cases.
Last week, the ongoing investigation of former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort had an unexpected leak in its legal documents as the lawyer’s representing Manafort improperly redacted a legal filing.
The document can be found here, and you can see for yourself how easy it is to access the information intended for redaction.
Simply adding black backgrounds to text or changing a font color does nothing to protect the actual text within a document, and it’s as simple as copying and pasting the text into a new document to reveal the information intended for redaction.
Some of the information contained within the filing included accusations that special counsel Robert Mueller has made against Manafort regarding sharing polling information with an alleged Russian intelligence agent, Konstantin Kilimnik. The improperly redacted sections also revealed an acknowledgement that Manafort met with Kilimnik.
Documents with sensitive information necessarily need proper redaction, whether it’s to shield social security numbers or private information.
Extract’s automated process ensures that no step of redaction is overlooked. Documents, read like a human would read them, are reviewed for personally identifiable information or other data to be redacted, and the information is removed completely, creating a new file. If you’d like to learn more about how Extract’s automated redaction platform works, please reach out today and we’d be happy to give you a call or show you a demo.
