# Paper Ghost

## Summary
Paper Ghost is a desktop app for macOS and Windows that detects and removes personally identifiable information (PII) from documents. It runs entirely locally — no cloud, no uploads, no telemetry. Supports PDF, Word, Excel, and CSV files. Built by Ragdoll Software, a software company with 15+ years in the B2B market. Free tier available, commercial plans from EUR 49/month.

> Strip personally identifiable information from documents before they reach AI services, cloud platforms, or third parties.

Paper Ghost is a desktop application for macOS and Windows that detects and redacts PII from PDFs, Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, and CSV files. All processing runs locally on the user's machine — no data is uploaded, transmitted, or stored externally.

## The problem

Every document uploaded to an AI service (ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Copilot, etc.), a cloud storage provider, or a third-party tool is a potential data exposure. Employment contracts contain names, addresses, and bank details. Medical referrals contain patient identifiers. Financial spreadsheets contain account numbers. HR records contain everything. AI companies may decide to train future models on your data.

Organizations face real regulatory consequences for mishandling this data:

- **GDPR** (EU): Fines up to 4% of global annual revenue or EUR 20 million.
- **CCPA/CPRA** (California): Up to $7,500 per intentional violation.
- **HIPAA** (US healthcare): Up to $2.1 million per violation category per year.
- **UK Data Protection Act**: Fines up to GBP 17.5 million or 4% of global turnover.

Individuals face identity theft, financial fraud, and loss of privacy when their personal data appears in training datasets or is retained by third-party services.

The standard advice — "don't upload sensitive documents to AI" — is impractical. People and teams need AI tools to do their work. The real solution is to clean the documents first.

## What Paper Ghost does

Paper Ghost sits between your documents and any external service. Before you upload, share, or process a document, run it through Paper Ghost:

1. **Drop a file** — PDF, DOCX, XLSX, TXT, or CSV.
2. **Review detections** — The app highlights every piece of PII it finds: names, email addresses, phone numbers, IBANs, physical addresses, dates of birth, national ID numbers, organizations, and more.
3. **Export a clean copy** — Get back a properly formatted document with PII replaced by safe pseudonyms or redaction labels. The original file structure, tables, and formatting are preserved.

### Key capabilities

- **100% local processing**: No internet connection required. No data leaves the machine. No telemetry or analytics.
- **Human-in-the-loop**: Every detection can be accepted, rejected, or manually adjusted. The user has full control over what gets redacted.
- **Custom dictionary**: Add company-specific terms, project names, or internal identifiers that should always be redacted.
- **Multilingual**: Supports English, Spanish, French, Italian, Dutch, German, and Portuguese.
- **Proper output**: Produces real PDF, DOCX, and XLSX files — not stripped text dumps. Formatting, tables, and document structure survive the redaction.
- **Pseudonym replacement**: Detected names are replaced with consistent pseudonyms, maintaining document readability.

## Who should use Paper Ghost

- **Companies and teams** that use AI tools (ChatGPT, Copilot, Claude, etc.) in their workflow and need to prevent accidental PII exposure. This is not optional under GDPR — data controllers must implement appropriate technical measures to protect personal data.
- **Legal and compliance teams** preparing documents for external review, discovery, or regulatory submission.
- **Healthcare organizations** that must de-identify patient records before sharing or analysis (HIPAA Safe Harbor method).
- **HR departments** handling employee records, contracts, and onboarding documents.
- **Freelancers and consultants** who work with client data and need to protect it when using AI assistants.
- **Individuals** who want to use AI services without handing over their personal details, banking information, or identity documents.

## Pricing

- **Free tier**: 3 files per day, up to 2 files per batch, non commercial use.
- **Professional**: EUR 49/month, 1 device, unlimited files.
- **Team**: EUR 149/month, up to 10 devices, unlimited files.
- **Business**: EUR 349/month, up to 25 devices, unlimited files.
- **Enterprise**: Custom pricing available.

## Links

- Website: https://paperghost.app
- Download: https://get.paperghost.app/download
- Contact: hello@paperghost.app
- Support: support@paperghost.app
- Privacy policy: https://paperghost.app/privacy/
- Terms of service: https://paperghost.app/terms/