arXiv:2606. 18782v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Large Language Models are increasingly applied to sensitive domains that require redaction of personally identifiable information (PII).
By Sean Brynj\'olfsson, Shashvat Jayakrishnan, Esha Sali, Diptanshu Purwar, Madhav Aggarwal
arXiv:2608. 14693v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: With the increasing digitization of personal and corporate communication, the automatic sanitization of textual data has become a crucial component of data privacy and compliance frameworks.
By Aravindhan Arunagiri, Ayaan Khan, Udayaadithya Avadhanam, SaiBarath Sundar
arXiv:2606. 24623v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Retrieval-Augmented Generation enhances large language models by incorporating external knowledge, but deploying it in sensitive scenarios risks privacy leakage via malicious prompts.
By Yuanhe Zhao, Tianyu Zhang, Huafei Xing, Derek F. Wong, Jianbin Li, Tao Fang
The paper systematically studies how anonymizing input data affects large language models (LLMs). Five prominent LLMs were evaluated on eleven benchmarks, comparing performance on original versus pseudonymized inputs. Results show that anonymization generally degrades performance, with larger drops for more capable models and task-dependent effects; reversible anonymization preserves entity uniqueness better than irreversible redaction, and prompting about anonymization offers no benefit.
By Tobias Deu{\ss}er, Max Hahnb\"uck, Lorenz Sparrenberg, Tobias Uelwer, Christian Bauckhage, Rafet Sifa
The paper introduces Veil-then-Reveal (VtR), a user-side framework that pseudo‑anonymizes personally identifiable information (PII) in prompts sent to large language models (LLMs) under a zero‑trust model. VtR replaces detected PII with realistic, same‑type surrogates using format‑preserving encryption for structured data and a keyed‑hash dictionary for semantic data, while preserving linguistic and structural cues. The system achieves high detection recall (97.9%), strong protection of detected values (95.2%), and near‑perfect round‑trip restoration (99.9%) across three datasets.
By Mohamed Shaaban, Mohamed Elmahallawy, Thomas E. Carroll
The paper introduces Whiteout, a tool that prevents large language models from revealing personally sensitive information (PSI) by overwriting such data with carefully crafted obfuscation samples. Whiteout is evaluated on various LLMs, including an OpenAI model, and shows effective PSI protection with minimal impact on model utility and safety. The study also tests Whiteout against multiple attack vectors and discusses its security and ethical implications.
By Anna Yoo Jeong Ha, Ronik Bhaskar, Haitao Zheng, Ben Y. Zhao