Anonymize chat transcripts before AI

Why this matters

• Chat logs often contain customer PII (names, emails, phone numbers) mixed with technical context.
• Support threads frequently include internal URLs, ticket links, and environment details.
• Engineers sometimes paste tokens, API keys, or config snippets mid-conversation.

What to remove (common patterns)

• Names and usernames: real names, handles, Slack mentions
• Emails and phone numbers
• Customer/account identifiers: tenant IDs, org IDs, order IDs, invoice IDs
• Internal URLs and hostnames (intranet, staging, Jira links)
• Secrets pasted inline: API keys, bearer tokens, JWTs, cookies, private key blocks

Example (before → after)

// Before
[10:12] Alice Chen ([email protected]): We're seeing 401s for tenant 9f2c1a...
[10:14] Support: Can you share this link? https://jira.internal.example.com/browse/INC-4821
[10:16] Dev: Here's the header: Authorization: Bearer eyJhbGciOi...

// After
[10:12] <CUSTOMER_NAME> (<EMAIL>): We're seeing 401s for tenant <TENANT_ID>...
[10:14] Support: Can you share this link? <INTERNAL_URL>
[10:16] Dev: Here's the header: Authorization: Bearer <BEARER_TOKEN>

Checklist (safe for sharing)

1. Replace PII with placeholders (e.g. <CUSTOMER_NAME>, <EMAIL>, <PHONE>).
2. Replace identifiers with placeholders (e.g. <ACCOUNT_ID>, <ORDER_ID>), but keep the *shape* if it helps debugging.
3. Remove internal URLs/hostnames and private IPs (e.g. <INTERNAL_URL>, <PRIVATE_IP>).
4. Remove secrets in the same pass (tokens, API keys, JWTs, cookies, private keys).
5. Do a final human scan before you share (fastest, most reliable step).

Internal guides

• Sanitize logs before AI
• Remove internal URLs from logs
• Remove emails from text
• Redact API keys
• Privacy

Note: this page is general guidance. If your chat transcript includes customer data, follow your team’s policy and share the minimum necessary context.