What happens when data is redacted?

Guard Detects sends an alert when potentially sensitive data is detected. If you determine that the data is sensitive and should not exist in the page or issue, you can choose to redact it. How to redact sensitive data

When you redact, the sensitive data is deleted and replaced with a solid bar to indicate the place where text was deleted. The length of the bar is not related to the length of the sensitive data and can’t be used to restore the sensitive data.

You can’t restore redacted data. You can later edit the page to remove the solid bar if you want to.

Where is data redacted?

Sensitive data is detected in and redacted from

• Page title and page body.

Sensitive data is not detected in or redacted from:

• comments on pages.

• whiteboards, live pages, or databases.

• space descriptions or other free text areas.

• text added via some third-party apps or macros.

• audit log activities that existed before the redaction.

Is page history redacted?

No. We only redact sensitive data in the current version of the page. However, you have the option to delete any historical versions that contain the sensitive data from the page history.

This completely removes the page versions that contained the data, including any other edits that may have been made in that version, and the record of who contributed to those versions. A new version is added, with a comment to indicate that sensitive data was redacted. Page versions can’t be restored once deleted.

Whether you choose to delete history will depend on your organization’s retention requirements, so we recommend you work with your team to determine whether deleting history is appropriate.

Can I redact selected instances?

Yes. If the page contains more than one instance of the same type of sensitive data you can redact all of them, or only selected instances.

For example, if you have a Confluence page that contains three test credit cards and one real credit card, you can choose to redact all instances, or only redact the real credit card, and leave the others in place.

A new alert will be generated for the remaining sensitive data, and alerts will continue to be generated if someone updates the page in future. To prevent this happening, you could consider excluding the page from that particular content scanning detection.

What does the user see when data is redacted?

The person who published the page that contained sensitive data will get an email and an in-app notification to let them know that sensitive data was redacted.

When they view or edit the page, they’ll see a solid bar to indicate the place where text was deleted. This experience is the same for anyone who views the page.