TeraDact Helps Police Forces Modernise Redaction and Disclosure Workflows
Police forces handle some of the most sensitive information in the public sector: case files, witness data, victim information, operational records, images, audio, video, and disclosure materials.
Traditional redaction processes are slow, inconsistent, and risky. Manual review can take days. Generic PDF tools can leave sensitive data exposed. And as evidence becomes increasingly multi-modal, forces need a secure platform that can handle more than static documents.
TeraDact Redactor Plus gives police teams a faster, safer, and more auditable way to redact sensitive information across documents, images, audio, and video.
Following a competitive selection process, Surrey & Sussex Police deployed TeraDact to support text redaction workflows. Early usage showed strong adoption, with thousands of pages redacted and users reporting major reductions in manual processing time. The deployment also helped shape police-specific capabilities including shared rulesets, audit trails, super-user controls, and secure identity management.
The Surrey & Sussex deployment became a reference point for other forces. North Yorkshire progressed through a framework mini competition and showed strong interest in extending redaction into audiovisual workflows. Northamptonshire organised a large internal demo across records, FOI, and disclosure teams, validating the same operational need. Western Australia / Perth Police adds international validation, showing the same redaction and sensitive-data protection need in the Australian police market.
Together, these forces show a repeatable pattern: police organisations need redaction that is fast, secure, explainable, and built for real disclosure workflows.
TeraDact’s platform supports that need with:
- AI-assisted detection of sensitive information
- Manual review and correction tools
- Shared rulesets for consistent force-wide standards
- Audit logs and chain-of-custody records
- Secure deployment and SSO support
- Audio transcription and redaction
- Video redaction for faces, licence plates, screens, vehicles, and people
- Scalable workflows for high-volume public-sector disclosure
For police forces, the result is more than time saved. It is greater confidence that sensitive information is protected before material is released.
The Challenge
Police disclosure and information management teams are under pressure from several directions at once.
1. Manual redaction is too slow for modern demand
Police teams routinely process sensitive case material, disclosure packs, FOI responses, SARs, operational records, and supporting evidence. The work is high-risk, detail-heavy, and often time-sensitive.
In the Surrey & Sussex post-launch notes, one user example stood out: a redaction task that would normally take around a week manually was completed in about 30 minutes with TeraDact. With TeraDact’s Redactor+ Officers are able to focus the context and critical information within a case instead of rushing through to check the boxes to complete the redaction tasks.
That matters because police redaction is not just an admin task. It is a public trust, legal compliance, and operational safety task.
2. Missed redactions create serious public risk
The notes repeatedly reference UK police forces being “caught using Adobe incorrectly” by applying black boxes rather than true redactions, exposing sensitive data. That incident became a clear example of why proper redaction tooling matters.
The implication is simple: if the underlying data remains in the file, the redaction has failed.
TeraDact’s value is that it gives police teams a workflow designed to burn in redactions, preserve an audit trail, and reduce the risk of sensitive information escaping through user error or poor tooling.
3. Police users need standardisation, not just software
The transcriptions show that users need:
- Shared rulesets
- NPCC-aligned approaches
- Exemption codes
- Repeatable workflows
- User-friendly review tools
- Audit logs
- Reporting
- Secure deployment and identity management
Surrey & Sussex requested organisation-wide default rulesets because many non-technical users struggled with uploading or applying JSON-based rulesets manually. The request was to make one or two standard rulesets available to all users while preserving the ability for advanced users to create and share their own.
That is the heart of the police use case: detecting sensitive data while creating a consistent operational standard across a force.
4. The market is moving beyond documents
The saved notes show a clear shift from text-only redaction to multi-modal evidence workflows:
- Documents
- Images
- Audio
- Video
- Transcription
- Translation
- Object tracking
- Face and licence plate redaction
- MG15-style transcription outputs
North Yorkshire stakeholders were particularly interested in audiovisual capabilities. Surrey & Sussex had prior transcription activity where alternative providers were selected but not awarded because the options were not good enough. TeraDact’s ability to bring text, image, audio, video, transcription, and translation into a unified platform became a major differentiator.
The TeraDact Solution
TeraDact Redactor Plus provides an AI-assisted redaction platform built for sensitive, high-throughput environments.
Core capabilities demonstrated across the police transcriptions
| Capability |
Police value |
| Automated PII detection |
Reduces manual review time and surfaces sensitive data quickly |
| Manual redaction tools |
Gives reviewers control over final disclosure decisions |
| Rulesets |
Standardises redaction practice across teams and forces |
| NPCC-style templates |
Supports police-specific standards and repeatable approaches |
| Exemption codes and comments |
Helps justify redaction decisions and support review workflows |
| Audit logs / chain of custody |
Tracks what was redacted, by whom, and when |
| Bulk document processing |
Enables force-wide scale rather than one-file-at-a-time workflows |
| Audio transcription and redaction |
Extends redaction into call recordings, interviews, and audio evidence |
| Video object tracking |
Supports faces, licence plates, screens, people, vehicles, and manual cleanup |
| Secure deployment model |
Supports UK data residency, SSO, network controls, and force-specific deployment needs |
Designed around real police workflows
The transcriptions show TeraDact adapting to specific police requirements:
- Surrey & Sussex required MFA, download formats, redaction controls, deployment planning, and transcription output requirements.
- North Yorkshire requested network connectivity and onboarding / implementation documentation.
- Northamptonshire organised a sizeable internal demo with approximately 30 staff from records, FOI, and disclosure roles.
- Western Australia / Perth Police validated the international deployment model, with notes indicating local Australian entity planning, regional data handling, and a target contract structure around a first Australian police customer.
- Surrey & Sussex requested user management controls, super-user monitoring, and Azure / Entra ID based role management.
- Police users wanted better ruleset management and organisation-wide defaults to help non-technical users.
This is important: TeraDact was not being evaluated as a generic redaction tool. It was being shaped around operational policing workflows.
The Results
After deploying RedactorPlus, Surrey Sussex Police Force realized dramatic improvements in redaction efficiency. The average time required for a typical redaction task was reduced from one week to just 30 minutes, representing a 95% gain in efficiency and saving 6.5 days per request. Manual steps in the process were reduced threefold, allowing staff to focus on critical policing priorities rather than administrative tasks. These advancements strengthened the force's ability to meet data protection obligations and enhanced the secure handling of sensitive information, supporting the broader shift toward digital policing.
Together, these forces show a repeatable pattern: police organisations need redaction that is fast, secure, explainable, and built for real disclosure workflows.
TeraDact’s platform supports that need with:
- AI-assisted detection of sensitive information
- Manual review and correction tools
- Shared rulesets for consistent force-wide standards
- Audit logs and chain-of-custody records
- Secure deployment and SSO support
- Audio transcription and redaction
- Video redaction for faces, licence plates, screens, vehicles, and people
- Scalable workflows for high-volume public-sector disclosure
For police forces, the result is more than time saved. It is greater confidence that sensitive information is protected before material is released.
Ready to move beyond manual, risky redaction? Talk with our team to see how TeraDact Redactor Plus can give your force faster, police‑grade redaction across documents, images, audio, and video.
