Introducing Launch of CamoText: a fully offline text anonymizer.

Mar 13, 2025

CamoText is a laptop-friendly desktop application with a simple user interface and zero data retention or communication—ideal for sanitizing documents and text prompts for firms using generative AI and large language models (LLMs) to enhance productivity.

CamoText was born from a practicing lawyer’s firsthand experience with the challenges of maintaining client confidentiality while leveraging LLMs for text analysis, research, and form generation. Entirely manual redaction was too time-consuming, but existing cloud-based and API-calling anonymization solutions posed extensive privacy risks and privilege/compliance issues—a new tool was necessary to make text anonymization fast, intuitive, and secure.

So, CamoText was built to:

– be private and compliant by design, with zero external connectivity and zero user data retained;

– be easy to use, with a simple and familiar interface;

– perform well on an average laptop, entirely on-device; and

– ensure the human-in-the-loop can easily override, review, and add.

Secure AI workflows must involve thoughtful top-to-bottom design and empowerment of the human-in-the-loop, but the first step is to prevent as much sensitive text as possible from ever leaving the source. CamoText ensures the anonymization process in conducted entirely on the user’s computer, then allowing the user to copy and paste the sanitized text wherever, such as to prompt ChatGPT or Claude to analyze the text for a specific purpose or generate a basic document form from the context. The app fully resets when closed.

CamoText features natural language processing and custom pattern-matching to detect and anonymize numerous different categories of text data that are commonly considered PII or otherwise commercially sensitive:

  • PERSON: Full or partial names that might identify an individual.
  • EMAIL_ADDRESS: Any recognized email format (e.g., user@domain.com).
  • PHONE_NUMBER: Telephone numbers in various formats, including international.
  • ENTITY: Organization names, such as CamoText LLC
  • MONEY: Monetary amounts (with currency symbols or references, numerical or words).
  • LOCATION: General location identifiers (e.g. Baltimore, Maryland)
  • STREET_ADDRESS: Address lines, road names, etc.
  • CREDIT_CARD: Numerical string matching common credit card number patterns
  • ACCOUNT: Account handles, PINs, and names (e.g. @CamoText1)
  • US_SSN: Numerical string matching US social security number pattern
  • US_PASSPORT: string matching US passport number pattern
  • US_BANK_NUMBER: US Bank Account number
  • US_ROUTING_NUMBER: US Bank routing number
  • IBAN_CODE: IBAN banking code
  • IP_ADDRESS: Both IPv4 and IPv6 patterns (e.g., 192.168.0.1).
  • MEDICAL_LICENSE: String matching common medical license pattern
  • API_KEY: Strings of characters that match known API credential formats.
  • UUID: Universally Unique Identifier strings (e.g., e-signed document identifiers, GUIDs).
  • CRYPTO_ADDRESS: cryptocurrency addresses (Bitcoin, Ethereum/EVM, Solana)
  • URL: Website urls or hyperlink patterns.
  • FILE: Common file types and file path strings (e.g., C:\Users\Username\Documents\secret.pdf, SurveillanceFootageHome.mp4).

 

Whether a given term or passage is confidential is often subjective and based on a given user’s circumstances and preferences. Because of this, CamoText has a simple highlight-and-anonymize feature for text of any length alongside the detected terms.

CamoText is a desktop application for Windows or MacOS available to download now, with custom recognizer patterns, implementation consults, training, and other options available for enterprise. Customers receive free access to updates for the year following their purchase, even if the price increases for their version. Because CamoText uses per-download single-license pricing, users need not worry about recurring subscription payments nor vendor lock-in, unlike SaaS/API-based anonymization services.

What started as a solution for a single legal practice is evolving into a powerful tool designed for professionals across industries. CamoText is a productivity-augmenting tool designed to help firms embrace AI-enhanced productivity while maintaining the highest standards of compliance, starting from a position of security and privacy. The human in the loop has ultimate control in determining what AI is able to read.

Visit camotext.ai to see a demo video, review features, and learn more.