Anonymising documents as a lawyer or legal professional
Lawyers, legal professionals and mediators work every day with documents full of confidential information. Sometimes a document has to be shared outside the immediate circle: with a colleague for peer review, in a knowledge base, in a publication, or increasingly as input for an AI assistant. Careful anonymisation is then not a formality but part of your professional duty.
Professional secrecy and the GDPR
In addition to the GDPR, lawyers are bound by a duty of confidentiality under the professional rules of their bar or law society. You may only share data about clients, opposing parties and third parties to the extent necessary for the case. If you want to present a case where the identity of those involved is not relevant, anonymisation or pseudonymisation is the way to go. Always check the rules and guidance of your own professional body for your situation.
Which documents should you anonymise?
- Court documents that serve as a model or example;
- Correspondence you discuss with a colleague or in a peer-review group;
- Judgments and opinions for a knowledge base, blog or newsletter;
- Text for AI tools you use to summarise, translate or produce a first draft.
Pseudonymise with consistent labels
Legal texts revolve around roles: claimant, defendant, employer, witness. If you replace names with random dots, a pleading becomes unreadable. Use consistent labels instead, such as [PERSON 1], [PERSON 2] or [COMPANY A], that stay the same throughout the document. That keeps the reasoning easy to follow.
Don't forget indirectly identifying data either: case and docket numbers, ID numbers, IBANs, addresses, dates of birth, licence plates, job titles in small organisations and unique facts that have appeared in the media.
Using AI tools without risk
Generative AI can save a lot of time when summarising files or drafting. But text you paste into a public chatbot leaves your firm and may be stored by the provider. The safe way of working:
- anonymise the text locally before pasting it into an AI tool;
- let the AI work with labels instead of real names;
- put the real data back yourself, in your own environment.
Everything stays on your own device. VerumVault runs entirely in your browser. Client documents are not uploaded, not stored and not shared with third parties, so you don't add a new processor to your file.
VerumVault for legal practice
VerumVault recognises personal data such as names, addresses, postcodes, IBANs, phone numbers and email addresses, and replaces them with clear labels. The tool also includes letter templates, including one for legal practice. Detection is currently optimised for Dutch documents. Use it as a quick first step and always check the result yourself: an automatic tool does not replace a lawyer's judgement.
Anonymise your document for free with VerumVault →Runs locally in your browser · no upload · no account · optimised for Dutch documentsFrequently asked questions
Can I paste client documents into ChatGPT as a lawyer?
That is risky because of your duty of confidentiality and the GDPR. Anonymise the text locally first, so no identifying data about clients or third parties goes to the AI service, and follow the guidance of your professional body.
What is the difference between anonymisation and pseudonymisation?
With anonymisation, the person can no longer be identified. With pseudonymisation you replace data with labels, but someone with additional information could still make the link. For internal use, pseudonymisation is often sufficient.
Does VerumVault store my documents?
No. Processing happens entirely locally in your browser. Nothing is sent to a server.