Before You Publish a Document: A Quick Privacy Checklist
Say a nonprofit — call it a small policy shop — is about to post a PDF report on its website. Someone proofread it, the logo's right, the numbers check out. It goes live. A week later a reporter notices the "Author" field still says the name of the intern who drafted an earlier, unflattering version, and a stray comment bubble in the margin reads "cut this before it goes out — too honest." Nobody removed it. Nobody thought to check.
Most document leaks aren't hacks. They're documents that were reviewed for what they say, but never checked for what they carry. Here's a short list to run through before anything goes out — a report, a résumé, a photo, a contract.
The checklist
- Metadata. Author, company name, software version and edit timestamps ride along in PDFs, Office files and images. Check what's in there before you send or post.
- Tracked changes and comments. A file can look "clean" on screen while still holding every accepted-and-hidden edit and margin note underneath.
- Hidden or "deleted" text. A black box over a word in a PDF doesn't delete it — the text is often still selectable underneath. Same goes for text just moved off the visible page.
- Location data. Photos carry GPS coordinates by default. If a picture shows a home, an office, or a person's regular location, that data goes with it unless you strip it.
- Invisible characters. Zero-width characters and look-alike letters can be pasted into text without anyone noticing — worth a check if the document started life somewhere you don't fully trust.
- Macros and embedded content. Office files can carry macros or embedded objects that do more than the document appears to. Know if there are any before you pass the file along.
Why a proofread isn't enough
Proofreading checks the words on the page. None of the items above show up there — they live in the file's structure, not its visible layout. That's exactly why they get missed: everyone involved is looking at the same rendered page, and the page looks fine.
Make it a five-second habit
You don't need to remember every item above by heart. With scrub, you drop the file in, it lists everything it finds — metadata, invisible characters, appended data, fragile watermarks — and you clean what you don't want to publish, on your own device. Nothing uploads anywhere. For a PDF or Word file, scrub currently scans and shows you what's hidden inside (tracked changes, comments, embedded content) — full removal of PDF/Office hidden content is scan-only for now, so use the scan as your checklist and edit the source file to remove anything flagged.
The short version
Reading a document isn't the same as checking it. Run the file through a scan before it goes out — metadata, tracked changes, hidden text, location data — and you catch the thing a proofread never will. Get scrub free and make it routine.