From Finance to Tech: Amanda Levay’s Journey to Transform Document Redaction

Redacting information in the olden times was easy. You could either use black ink to overlay sensitive information or simply cut out the relevant parts. Once that document got xeroxed, the copy would be nearly impossible to decipher.

But then the digital era came, and PDFs changed how we store and distribute digitized documents. Yet the convenience of digitization brought some challenges, too. In 2017, Amanda Levay was surprised that there wasn’t a straightforward solution for secure document redaction. The available tools were outdated and lacked accuracy. That gap in the market led her to self-fund and launch Redactable after leaving the finance sector.

“During my time in the industry, I often had to redact sensitive information in documents for due diligence, credit underwriting, and lending. I remember having to manually draw boxes over sensitive data, such as client inspections and pre-appraisals, only to find that the redaction was easily bypassed by simply deleting the boxes in a PDF editor,” Levay told the California Business Journal.

Levay is the Founder and CEO of Redactable, headquartered in New York City. She established the company around five years ago to tackle a professional challenge the financial services industry presented her with daily.

However, by 2024, companies must have figured out how to use sophisticated digital methods to conceal sensitive information. Right? Not really. Many companies still use black Sharpies for redacting documents, but this method has significant drawbacks. Modern scanners are highly sensitive and can sometimes detect the Sharpie’s bleed-through, making it possible to recover the obscured text.

“With the transition to electronic documents, effective redaction has become even more critical. Simply overlaying a black box or image is insufficient for electronic redactions. True redaction requires manipulating the PDF structure to genuinely and permanently remove sensitive information, ensuring it cannot be uncovered or recovered,” Levay said.

The importance of this goes beyond a wee name here and an odd birthday there. When companies are lax about protecting and sharing data with multiple third parties, the risks of identity theft increase significantly. Consider scenarios like insurance claims or lending processes, where documents are circulated among various parties through emails and other channels. Often, the data’s destination is uncertain, and personally identifiable information (PII) such as Social Security numbers, credit card details, names, and addresses can be exposed to unintended or unauthorized individuals.

Once data is sent, controlling its further distribution becomes challenging. Therefore, the only effective strategy is to ensure that sensitive information is adequately protected from the outset to prevent misuse and safeguard privacy.

But how does Redactable do it? “Think of it as a ‘DocuSign for redaction.’ Our platform offers a user-friendly interface where you simply upload your document and let our tools scan it for sensitive information,” Levay said. Redactable’s perks go beyond concealing information for good.

Documents are often long, and vetting each line for sensitive information can be a menial and mundane manual exercise—and a process prone to mistakes. Redactable’s system, however, scrutinizes all areas containing sensitive data in the PDF. Names, account numbers, addresses, and further sensitive information are just a click away. The user can select what to conceal, and with another click, the redacted document is exported in minutes.

The software can handle these tasks using artificial intelligence (A.I.) running under the hood. The system leverages advanced natural language processing and named entity recognition techniques specifically designed to identify PII. Unlike general language models, this technology is tailored to pinpoint sensitive data accurately. It can detect names, addresses, account numbers, handwritten text, signatures, logos, and images within documents. The system scans documents, highlights the detected sensitive information, and allows users to decide what to redact.

“We use a combination of proprietary and open-source A.I. models, which we have specifically trained to recognize the types of data we need to identify. This includes handwriting, signature lines, and logos. Our training process ensures high accuracy in detecting and managing sensitive information,” Levay said.

Interestingly, despite the proliferation of A.I. and the grave demand for data protection from end-users, the redaction market is far from saturated; it is more of a legacy market. Many companies still rely on outdated methods, like using Adobe desktop applications or manually highlighting sections line by line. Most of Redactable’s clients sign up with the business because they recognize the inefficiency of these traditional processes and are eager to leverage modern technology to boost productivity.

“Educating the market about these advancements is crucial to our work. For example, employees often spend an entire workweek redacting a 1,000-page document using these old methods. Our solution can redact the same document in under two hours, saving substantial time. This efficiency reduces the cost of productivity and allows companies to reallocate their resources to more valuable tasks instead of painstakingly reviewing thousands of pages manually,” Levay said.

Even though A.I. technology is still in early development, when artificial intelligence processes focus on a single task type, they hallucinate less than humans would make mistakes when completing dull, repetitive tasks. Well-calibrated and trained software significantly accelerates the redaction process by eliminating the need for manual review of each document, which speeds things up and reduces errors. This is where Levay says Redactable’s value proposition lies.

“We see over 90% time savings compared to tools like Adobe or manual methods. Our A.I. significantly reduces human errors. While we don’t aim to replace human review entirely, we focus on expediting the process. Our technology enables faster identification of sensitive data, allowing employees to conduct a quick review and efficiently export the redacted document,” the founder CEO said.

The redaction industry is often considered a legacy market because it is dominated by outdated processes rather than innovative technology. “Traditional tools like Adobe, a staple on our computers for years, represent this old approach. For instance, our largest client is the U.S. Air Force, which still uses outdated methods like black markers for redacting documents,” Levay said.

At the end of last year, Redactable secured a US$1.25 million Direct-to-Phase II contract from AFWERX to develop AI-driven redaction software for the Department of the Air Force. This partnership will streamline innovation and enhance national defense by automating document protection and business processes.

“This is where Redactable comes in. We are working to transform this slow-moving industry by offering a more efficient and secure solution. Our goal is to become the go-to provider for any organization, at any stage, that needs to redact sensitive documents—a market need that currently lacks a comprehensive solution,” Levay added.

However, educating markets is always challenging. The bigger the business, the less likely it would be willing to roll out new software or processes, as it always involves pushback from employees, lengthy training sessions, and mistakes in the beginning. But technological advancements are essential for long-term business success. And Levay seems content to create waves.

“Our focus is on highly regulated sectors such as healthcare, legal, and government, where stringent compliance laws necessitate effective redaction. There is a significant demand for innovative redaction solutions in these critical industries. Despite its importance, the redaction market has stagnated, lacking the transformative innovation that Redactable aims to deliver,” she said.

Redactable is a venture-backed company that has raised approximately US$7 million in capital. Google’s A.I. fund led Redactable’s most recent seed round, and Levay is excited to keep pushing the boundaries of innovation in this field. The founder CEO is ambitious about the software’s future.

“We aim to become the go-to redaction platform, similar to how DocuSign and Dropbox dominate their categories. We strive to be the first-choice B2B solution for easy, low-touch redaction accessible to individuals and businesses. With extensive user feedback guiding us, we plan to integrate advanced A.I. models that understand contextual data, enabling features like auto-redaction of specific contract clauses and interactive document searching,” she said.

Redactable may be able to hit its moonshots. It has already sailed to the other side of the ocean. Building on industry knowledge of personal data protection frameworks such as the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), California Privacy Rights Act (CPRA), Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), or Federal Trade Commission (FTC), Redactable has enrolled clients in Europe.

“We currently serve some U.K. customers and plan to expand into GDPR [the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation on information privacy] markets as we scale. This will involve setting up EU-based servers to comply with stricter data storage regulations. As data privacy laws in the European Union are more stringent than in the United States, we anticipate significant opportunities in this market and are preparing to address these requirements as part of our future growth strategy,” Levay concluded.

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