Sending payslips and HR documents as PDFs without exposing personal data
Updated
A redacted payslip is a payslip with some details permanently removed — usually the NI or national ID number, the bank account and the home address — so that what the other person needs (employer, pay period, gross and net pay) stays readable. Redacted means removed from the file, not just covered with a black box, which anyone can copy back out.
Payroll and HR documents are shared constantly — with an employee, an accountant, a lender, a tribunal — and almost every one of them carries more personal data than the recipient needs.
What is usually in there
- Bank account details, used for the salary payment and needed by nobody else.
- National identifiers and tax or social security numbers.
- Home address and personal phone number.
- Absence, sickness or disciplinary information, which is often special-category data.
- Other employees, when the document is a payroll summary rather than a single payslip.
The rule of thumb
Send what the recipient needs for the purpose they asked for, and nothing else. A lender verifying income needs gross pay and an employer name; it does not need a bank account number or a colleague's salary.
Doing it safely
- Work on a copy, never on the original record.
- Mark every field the recipient does not need and remove it from the file — not with a black box.
- Strip the metadata: exported payroll PDFs frequently carry the system user name and the original file path.
- Check the finished file: extract its text again and search it for the account number and the identifiers you removed.
- If any page is a scan, look at it yourself — no automatic check can read it.
TachadoPDF does steps 2 to 4 in your browser, without the document leaving your machine, and blocks the download if anything you redacted is still extractable from the result. Automatic detection currently covers email addresses and Spanish identifiers; in a payslip from any other country you mark the fields yourself, and the removal and the verification are identical either way.
General information, not legal advice, and not a statement about your obligations as an employer.
Frequently asked questions
What does a redacted payslip mean?
It is a payslip with sensitive details, such as the NI or national ID number, the bank account and the home address, removed before it is shared, while the figures the other person needs stay visible.
What can I redact on a payslip?
Anything the recipient did not ask for and does not need: typically the NI or national ID number, bank account details, the home address and details of other employees. Keep what the purpose needs, usually the employer, the pay period and the pay figures; if unsure, ask the person requesting it what they need.