ELECTRONIC DOCUMENT CONTENT REDACTION

• US 20150378973A1
• Filed: 10/07/2014
• Published: 12/31/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 06/24/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: ABBYY Development LLC
• Original Assignee: ABBYY Development LLC
• Inventors: Korneev, Ivan Yurievich
• Granted Patent: US 10,108,815 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 21/6245 Protecting personal data, e.g. for financial or medical purposes
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/103 Formatting, i.e. changing of presentation of documents automatic justification G06F40/189; automatic line break hyphenation G06F40/191

Abstract

Systems and methods for redacting certain content (e.g., content representing private, privileged, confidential, or otherwise sensitive information) from electronic documents. An example method comprises: identifying, by a computing device, two or more layers in an electronic document; processing each of the identified layers to produce a layer text representing one or more objects comprised by the layer; combining the produced layer texts to produce a combined text of the electronic document; and identifying, within the combined text of the electronic document, a target character string corresponding, in view of a specified search function, to a specified character string.

Claims

1. A method, comprising:

identifying, by a computing device, two or more layers in an electronic document;

processing each of the identified layers to produce a layer text representing one or more objects comprised by the layer;

combining the produced layer texts to produce a combined text of the electronic document; and

identifying, within the combined text of the electronic document, a target character string corresponding, in view of a specified search function, to a specified character string.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the specified search function is provided by one of:

a strict search, a fuzzy search, a synonymic search, a morphologically-aware search, a semantic search, or a search employing a user-defined transformation.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the layer text comprises one or more character strings comprised by the layer.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the layer text comprises one or more character strings representing one or more images comprised by the layer.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein processing a layer comprises performing optical character recognition of the images to produce the character strings and position of the character strings within the electronic document.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

redacting, from the electronic document, the target character string.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein the redacting comprises at least one of:

removing the target character string, replacing the target character with a filling string, or replacing an image corresponding to the target character string with a filling image.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein combining the produced layer texts is performed in view of relative positions of layer texts within a visual image of the electronic document.

9. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

redacting the target character string from one or more;

a metadata item, an annotation field, or a comment field of the electronic document.

10. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

visually rendering the electronic document;

visually identifying the content to be redacted; and

receiving an input confirming redaction of the target character string from the electronic document.

11. A computing device, comprising:

a memory;

a processor, coupled to the memory, to;

identify two or more layers in an electronic document;

process each of the identified layers to produce a layer text representing one or more objects comprised by the layer;

combine the produced layer texts to produce a combined text of the electronic document; and

identify, within the combined text of the electronic document, a target character string corresponding, in view of a specified search function, to a specified character string.

12. The computing device of claim 11, wherein the specified search function is provided by one of:

a strict search, a fuzzy search, a synonymic search, a morphologically-aware search, a semantic search, or a search employing a user-defined transformation.

13. The computing device of claim 11, wherein the layer text comprises one or more character strings comprised by the layer.

14. The computing device of claim 11, wherein the layer text comprises one or more character strings representing one or more images comprised by the layer.

15. The computing device of claim 14, wherein processing a layer comprises performing optical character recognition of the images to produce the character strings and position of the character strings within the layer.

16. The computing device of claim 11, wherein the processor is further to:

redact, from the electronic document, the target character string.

17. The computing device of claim 11, wherein combining the produced layer texts is performed in view of relative positions of layer texts within a visual image of the electronic document.

18. The computing device of claim 11, wherein the processor is further to:

visually render the electronic document;

visually identify the content to be redacted; and

receive an input confirming redaction of the target character string from the combined text of the electronic document.

19. A computer-readable non-transitory storage medium comprising executable instructions that, when executed by a computing device, cause the computing device to perform operations comprising:

identifying two or more layers in an electronic document;

processing each of the identified layers to produce a layer text representing one or more objects comprised by the layer;

combining the produced layer texts to produce a combined text of the electronic document; and

identifying, within the combined text of the electronic document, a target character string corresponding, in view of a specified search function, to a specified character string.

20. The computer-readable non-transitory storage medium of claim 19, wherein the specified search function is provided by one of:

a strict search, a fuzzy search, a synonymic search, a morphologically-aware search, a semantic search, or a search employing a user-defined transformation.