Anonymize public sector documents for AI
The need to anonymize public sector documents for AI concerns French local authorities (town halls, groupings of municipalities, departments, regions) and their bodies: social welfare centers (CCAS), tourist offices, joint authorities. Their departments handle resident files, aid applications, permits, public contracts and council decisions that mention staff, residents and bidding companies. Prepared with Biffer, these files can be submitted to an online AI, a third party outside the administration, within the framework that protects them. Biffer processes them on the staff member's computer, with no connection, and replaces each identifier with a stable alias.
This page describes the files concerned, the applicable rules, the AI uses and the fields of the local government profile.
Council decisions, resident files, contracts: a local authority's files
A local authority produces and receives very different files from one department to another, but almost all of them are named.
- Resident files (Word, PDF): civil status, school and after-school enrollments, resident number, family benefits claimant number used to calculate means-tested rates, tax number.
- Aid and social welfare applications: CCAS reports, housing applications, application number, family situation and income.
- Planning: building permits, prior declarations, permit or authorization number, land registry reference, the applicant's name.
- Public procurement: bid evaluation reports, public contract number, bidders' SIRET (French company number) and prices, rejection letters.
- Council: draft decisions, council meeting minutes, decision number, names of elected officials and of people mentioned.
- Human resources: staff number, individual orders, career reviews, payslips.
Biffer processes these PDF, Word, Excel, CSV and text files while preserving their formatting; an order scanned as an image goes through built-in optical character recognition, offline, then is redacted by blacking out the pixels, with no possible restoration. The general method is described on the page prepare a document for AI.
Secrecy, administrative documents and the GDPR: the applicable rules
French public servants are bound by professional secrecy and professional discretion. Breach of secrecy is punished under Article 226-13 of the French Criminal Code. The French Code of Relations between the Public and the Administration also governs the disclosure of administrative documents: those that touch on private life are reserved for the person concerned, and redacting them before turning to an AI respects this framework.
The GDPR and the French Data Protection Act apply in full to local authorities, which are controllers. Three points deserve attention.
- A benefits claimant number, a tax number or a resident number identify a person as surely as a name, and often lead to sensitive data (income, family situation, health).
- Bids submitted for a public contract are covered by trade secrecy until the procedure ends, and some information remains so afterwards.
- Where processing happens matters: with offline software, files stay inside the authority and you keep control of the question of processors.
Biffer prepares, you validate: the staff member reviews the preview and the authority has the final word on what it shares.
AI use cases and the Biffer workflow
Once pseudonymized, a local authority's files lend themselves well to AI assistance, because most tasks concern the substance of the files rather than the identity of the people.
- Draft a council decision from an internal memo.
- Summarize a bid evaluation report or council meeting minutes.
- Rephrase a letter refusing aid or rejecting a bid in plain language.
- Sort resident requests exported as CSV by reason.
The workflow is the same for every department.
- You drop the file (PDF, Word, Excel, CSV or text) into Biffer with the local government profile enabled.
- The local analysis highlights people, addresses, resident, claimant, tax, decision, contract, permit and staff numbers.
- You untick false positives (the name of the town, a regulatory reference) and add what is missing, all occurrences at once.
- The document comes out with stable aliases (USAGER_001 for a resident, MARCHE_001 for a contract, AGENT_002; the alias labels are in French); in Word and PDF, redacted data is highlighted in black, an option enabled by default.
- The mapping table, encrypted or in plain text, restores the original values in the AI's answer.
The queue processes a batch of files in reviewed or automatic mode. Biffer is free for five files per month, after a one-time email confirmation in the software; beyond that, Biffer for Mac or Biffer for PC costs €10 excl. VAT (€12 incl. VAT) per computer, paid once: a lifetime license tied to the computer, unlimited files, all redaction features included. Each step is detailed on the features page.
The fields the local government profile recognizes
The local government profile adds identifiers specific to local administration to the general detections. Here is the exact list, as it appears in the software.
| Field | Where you find it |
|---|---|
| Staff number | Individual orders, career reviews, payroll |
| Application number | One-stop desk, aid applications, online requests |
| Benefits claimant number | After-school files, means-tested rates, CCAS |
| Tax number | Proof of income, attached tax notices |
| Council decision number | Draft decisions and decision registers, minutes |
| Public contract number | Evaluation reports, signed bids, letters to bidders |
| Permit / authorization number | Planning, use of public space, drinks licenses |
| Resident number | Family portal, library, payment desks |
On top of these come the four fields shared by all professions (file number, reference, contract number, employee ID) and the general detections: people, emails, phone numbers, postal addresses, SIREN and SIRET, French social security number, IBAN, license plates, dates. For an identifier specific to your authority, the custom keyword field described on the professions page completes the list. Biffer is published by Romain Rissoan, trainer, consultant and founder of OPCADIA, in Lyon.
Frequently asked questions
Should the names of elected officials be redacted in a council decision?
It depends on the use. Council decisions are public documents, and the names of the officials who vote legitimately appear in them. If you ask an AI to summarize minutes that are already published, you can keep these names with the "keep" policy, which applies to the "person" data type without affecting the other detections. On the other hand, a draft decision not yet adopted, or minutes that mention residents, staff or bidding companies, should be pseudonymized before anything is sent. In Biffer's preview, you untick the elected officials and leave the other people replaced by their aliases.
Can a local authority use Biffer for free?
Yes, with no time limit. The free plan gives five files per month with every feature: the staff member installs the software, enters their work email address the first time they open it, clicks the confirmation link received, once per computer and with no password, then checks on their own files that resident, contract or decision numbers are recognized. The monthly counter is kept on the computer. For higher volumes, each computer gets Biffer for Mac or Biffer for PC for €10 excl. VAT (€12 incl. VAT), paid by card via Stripe, a lifetime license for the version purchased and tied to the computer, unlimited files. Every feature is included. For a purchase through a French public sector payment order (mandat administratif), write to us at contact@biffer.fr: we review requests case by case.
Is the metadata of a Word order cleaned?
Yes. A Word file keeps the name of its author, the organization name set in Office, the authors of comments and revisions, sometimes the path of the template used. This information, invisible on screen, travels with the file. Biffer clears this metadata at export, in addition to replacing the data in the body text with aliases. The file given to the AI therefore carries neither the name of the staff member who wrote it nor that of the department. If you then need to restore the original values in the answer you get, the mapping table, encrypted or in plain text, takes care of it, still locally.
Your business documents anonymized, ready to be published or handed to an AI tool.
Biffer runs on your computer without sending a single file. Free for five files a month, unlimited for €10 excl. VAT per computer.
100% offline · Free: 5 files a month · No file sent