In the artificial intelligence (AI) era, data has become increasingly essential for learning and analysis. AI enables automated decision-making that may lead to violation of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). The GDPR is the data protection law within the European Union (EU) that allows individuals (‘data subjects’) to control their personal data.
This research paper examines a critical privacy challenge related to IRREVERSIBILITY — once pii propagates, it cannot be un-propagated.
cloak.business addresses this through zero-storage microservices processing all data in-memory with no disk writes — PII cannot propagate from a system that never stores it.
Once PII propagates, it cannot be un-propagated. The arrow of data only points one direction. PII exposure is a one-way function with no inverse.
Irreducible truth: Information entropy only increases. You cannot recall a broadcast signal. You cannot un-train a neural network. You cannot selectively erase a backup tape. Every deletion mechanism is an approximation — and the original exposure persists.
cloak.business identifies 390+ entity types including names, email addresses, advertising IDs, device identifiers, behavioral profiles. The dual-layer (317 custom regex + NLP) architecture uses 317 custom regex recognizers with context word analysis and confidence scoring 0.0–1.0 for structured identifiers and spaCy (25 languages) + Stanza (7 languages) + XLM-RoBERTa (16 languages) — all self-hosted for contextual references.
Redact is recommended for this pain point: anonymizing PII before sharing with third parties prevents propagation that makes recall impossible. Replace provides an alternative — substituting identifiers before third-party sharing maintains data utility while preventing individual tracking. For scenarios requiring reversibility, Encrypt (AES-256-GCM) enables authorized recovery of original values.
The REST API (Business plan) provides programmatic access to 317 custom regex recognizers and 3 NLP engines. Session-based JWT auth for web/desktop; Bearer API key for MCP/REST integration.
This pain point intersects with GDPR Article 28 processor obligations, Article 44 transfer restrictions.
cloak.business’s GDPR (Article 25 Privacy by Design), ISO 27001:2022 compliance coverage, combined with Germany only, no third-party transfers, ISO 27001:2022 certified hosting, provides documented technical measures organizations can reference in their compliance documentation and regulatory submissions.
| Specification | Value |
|---|---|
| Platform Version | Analyzer 6.9.1, Image Redactor 5.3.0 |
| Entity Types | 390+ (519 documented) |
| Detection Layers | 317 custom regex + 3 NLP engines (all self-hosted) |
| Languages | 48 UI languages, 37 OCR language packs |
| Anonymization Methods | Replace, Redact, Mask, Hash (SHA-256), Encrypt (AES-256-GCM) |
| Architecture | Zero-storage microservices (in-memory only) |
| Integration Points | Web App, Desktop, Office Add-in, MCP Server (9 tools), REST API |
| Hosting | Germany only, ISO 27001:2022, no third-party transfers |
| Compliance | GDPR Article 25, ISO 27001:2022 |