Redacted Documents
Some documents have redactions, with a black or white box or black highlighting that makes the original text unreadable. Sometimes these are redactions of personally identifiable information that has been withheld from public view based on privacy concerns.
The tobacco companies can redact the following:
- Information about any individual: social security numbers, home addresses, personal phone numbers, financial account information, driver's license numbers, date of birth, mother's maiden name and names of minors.
- Information about the tobacco companies' own employees or employees' families, or consumers in their capacity as consumers: the same information as above, and in addition, personal email addresses and names where the document also links the person to certain kinds of information (e.g. sexual orientation, medical information, certain kinds of employment-related information)
It is possible to request that certain personal confidential redactions be lifted in whole or in part where they are broader than the limited list of allowable redactions. If you come across a personal confidential redaction that you would like to see in unredacted form, you can
ask us to inquire whether the redaction can be lifted.
You can also ask us to redact personal information. We will redact Social Security numbers, bank account numbers and protected health information. We will not remove documents from the archive.