🛡️ PIIFILL: High-Performance PII Redaction CLI & Data Masking Tool

The ultimate PII filler and sensitive information masker. Secure your data with 100% offline, OCR-powered redaction.

Built with precision by Bhavin Sachaniya

Overview • Installation • Basic Usage • Security Analytics • Supported Formats

📖 What is PIIFILL?

PIIFILL is a high-performance command-line utility designed to automatically detect and redact Personally Identifiable Information (PII) from documents, datasets, and images. It serves as a comprehensive PII filler and data anonymization tool, ensuring that sensitive information is masked before files are shared or processed.

🛡️ Key Capabilities & PII Detection

[!IMPORTANT] 100% Offline Processing: PIIFILL is built for maximum privacy. All detection, masking, and OCR processing happen locally on your machine. Your data is never uploaded to any cloud service.

🚀 Quick Start

Installation

Ensure you have Python 3.8+ installed. You can install PIIFILL directly via pip:

pip install piifill-cli==0.1.8

🛠️ Usage Guide

PIIFILL follows a simple two-phase workflow: Scan (To identify) and Mask (To protect).

1. Identify Privacy Risks (scan)

Use the scan command to audit your files. This is a read-only operation that provides a detailed report of potential PII without modifying your source files.

# Scan a single document
piifill scan sensitive_data.pdf

# Perform a deep search in a folder (recursive)
piifill scan ./private_docs/ --recursive

2. Protect Your Files (mask)

Once verified, use mask to generate sanitized versions of your files. By default, it creates an out/ directory with the protected copies.

# Mask a single file
piifill mask user_records.csv

# Mask all files in a directory
piifill mask ./raw_logs/

📂 Working with Folders

Want to clean up an entire folder of data? PIIFILL makes it easy.

Example: Mask every file in a folder

piifill mask ./data_dump/

• PIIFILL will scan every file in ./data_dump/.
• It will create a new folder called ./data_dump/out/.
• All your safe, cleaned-up files will be waiting for you inside the out folder!

Example: Save the safe files somewhere specific

piifill mask ./private_files/ -o ./safe_backup/

• This takes everything from private_files and puts the safe versions in safe_backup.

⚙️ Command Reference

🎭 Masking Modes

You can customize how PII is hidden using the --mode flag:

• mask (Default): Replaces data with descriptive placeholders (e.g., [REDACTED]).
• redact: Completely removes the sensitive data from the file.
• tokenize: Replaces data with unique, trackable tokens (e.g., <EMAIL_123>).

📊 Security & Risk Analytics

PIIFILL doesn't just hide data—it helps you understand your privacy posture through integrated analytics:

• Security Grade: A standardized rating (A to F) based on PII density.
• Risk Score (0-100): A quantitative metric representing the severity of data exposure.
• Frequency Analysis: A detailed breakdown of detected entities (e.g., "5 Credit Cards, 12 Emails found").

📂 Supported File Formats & OCR

PIIFILL supports a wide range of formats, including advanced OCR (Optical Character Recognition) support for image-based documents, making it the most versatile PII filler for mixed-media datasets.

[!TIP] Deep Image Detection: PIIFILL uses built-in OCR capabilities to detect and mask text hidden inside screenshots and scanned documents automatically.

❓ Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

1. How do I redact PII from documents offline?

You can use piifill mask <file_path> to redact PII locally. Since PIIFILL processes all data on your machine, it is the safest way to handle sensitive documents without cloud exposure.

2. Is PIIFILL a free PII filler?

Yes, PIIFILL is an open-source tool licensed under MIT. You can use it for both personal and commercial projects at no cost. See pricing.md for details.

3. Does PIIFILL support Aadhaar and SSN masking?

Yes, PIIFILL has built-in support for global identifiers including US Social Security Numbers (SSN) and Indian Aadhaar card details.

4. Can PIIFILL detect PII in screenshots?

Absolutely. PIIFILL includes OCR (Optical Character Recognition) to find and redact PII text inside images like .png and .jpg.

👤 Author

Bhavin Sachaniya

• Web: bhavinsachaniya.in
• GitHub: @Bhavinsachaniya

📜 License

This project is licensed under the MIT License. See the LICENSE file for details.