PII Redaction

The PII Redaction model lets you minimize sensitive information about individuals by automatically identifying and removing it from your transcript.

Personal Identifiable Information (PII) is any information that can be used to identify a person, such as a name, email address, or phone number.

When you enable the PII Redaction model, your transcript will look like this:

• With hash substitution: Hi, my name is ####!
• With entity_name substitution: Hi, my name is [PERSON_NAME]!

You can also Create redacted audio files to replace sensitive information with a beeping sound.

Quickstart

Enable PII Redaction by setting redact_pii to true in the transcription config.

Use redact_pii_policies to specify the information you want to redact. For the full list of policies, check out PII policies.

Example output

Smoke from hundreds of wildfires in Canada is triggering air quality alerts
throughout the US. Skylines from Maine to Maryland to Minnesota are gray and
smoggy. And in some places, the air quality warnings include the warning to stay
inside. We wanted to better understand what's happening here and why, so we
called ##### #######, an ######### ######### in the ########## ## #############
###### ### ########### at ##### ####### ##########. Good morning, #########.
Good morning. So what is it about the conditions right now that have caused this
round of wildfires to affect so many people so far away? Well, there's a couple
of things. The season has been pretty dry already, and then the fact that we're
getting hit in the US. Is because there's a couple of weather systems that ...

Create redacted audio files

In addition to redacting sensitive information from the transcription text, you can also generate a version of the original audio file with the PII "beeped" out.

Example output

https://s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/api.assembly.ai.usw2/redacted-audio/ac06721c-d1ea-41a7-95f7-a9463421e6b1.mp3?AWSAccessKeyId=...

API reference

Request

curl https://api.assemblyai.com/v2/transcript \
--header "Authorization: <YOUR_API_KEY>" \
--header "Content-Type: application/json" \
--data '{
  "audio_url": "YOUR_AUDIO_URL",
  "redact_pii": true,
  "redact_pii_policies": ["us_social_security_number", "credit_card_number"],
  "redact_pii_sub": "hash",
  "redact_pii_audio": true,
  "redact_pii_audio_quality": "mp3"
}'

Key	Type	Description
redact_pii	boolean	Enable PII Redaction.
redact_pii_policies	array	PII policies for what information to redact.
redact_pii_sub	string	Method used to substitute PII in the transcript. Can be entity_name or hash.
redact_pii_audio	boolean	Create a redacted version of the audio file.
redact_pii_audio_quality	string	Quality of the redacted PII audio file. Can be mp3 or wav.

Response

Key	Type	Description
text	string	Transcript with redacted PII.

The response also includes the request parameters used to generate the transcript.

PII policies

Policy name	Description	Example
medical_process	Medical process, including treatments, procedures, and tests.	heart surgery, CT scan
medical_condition	Name of a medical condition, disease, syndrome, deficit, or disorder.	chronic fatigue syndrome, arrhythmia, depression.
blood_type	Blood type.	O-, AB positive
drug	Medications, vitamins, or supplements.	Advil, Acetaminophen, Panadol
injury	Bodily injury.	I broke my arm, I have a sprained wrist
number_sequence	A "lazy" rule that redacts any sequence of numbers equal to or greater than 2.
email_address	Email address.	support@assemblyai.com
date_of_birth	Date of birth.	Date of Birth: March 7,1961
phone_number	Telephone or fax number.
us_social_security_number	Social Security Number or equivalent.
credit_card_number	Credit card number.
credit_card_expiration	Expiration date of a credit card.
credit_card_cvv	Credit card verification code.	CVV: 080
date	Specific calendar date.	December 18
nationality	Terms indicating nationality, ethnicity, or race.	American, Asian, Caucasian
event	Name of an event or holiday.	Olympics, Yom Kippur
language	Name of a natural language.	Spanish, French
location	Any Location reference including mailing address, postal code, city, state, province, or country.
money_amount	Name and/or amount of currency.	15 pesos, $94.50
person_name	Name of a person.	Bob, Doug Jones
person_age	Number associated with an age.	27, 75
organization	Name of an organization.	CNN, McDonalds, University of Alaska
political_affiliation	Terms referring to a political party, movement, or ideology.	Republican, Liberal
occupation	Job title or profession.	professor, actors, engineer, CPA
religion	Terms indicating religious affiliation.	Hindu, Catholic
drivers_license	Driver’s license number.	DL# 356933-540
banking_information	Banking information, including account and routing numbers.

Troubleshooting

Why is the PII not redacted in my transcription?

PII only redacts words under the text key. When PII is enabled together with other features such as Entity Detection and Summarization, PII can still show up in the entities or summary key. Ensure that the redact_pii_policies parameter is included in your request with the desired policy names. If you're still experiencing issues, please reach out to our support team for assistance.

Why is my webhook not being sent?

There could be several reasons why your webhook isn't being sent, such as a misconfigured URL, an unreachable endpoint, or an issue with the authentication headers. Double-check your request and ensure that the webhook_url parameter is included with a valid URL that can be reached by AssemblyAI's API. If you're using custom authentication headers, ensure that the webhook_auth_header_name and webhook_auth_header_value parameters are included and are correct. If you're still having issues, please contact our support team for assistance.