Anonimatum · Privacy
Remove the metadata from a PDF before you share it
Anonimatum strips what your documents say about themselves —author, dates, properties and EXIF— so they don’t leave your organisation carrying more than meets the eye.
A document says more than what you see on its pages. Its properties may hold the name of the person who wrote it, the title of an internal draft, the organisation that produced it or, in a photo, the phone that took it. Nobody notices until the document reaches the other side of a negotiation, a court or a newspaper, and someone opens the properties.
That is why removing metadata should be routine before publishing or sending. In Anonimatum, “Remove metadata” cleans PDF, Office documents and images in one go, file by file or folder by folder, and gives them back ready to share, without touching the visible content.
If the document has been anonymised, metadata is the last loose end: there is little point redacting a name in the text if it is still listed as the author. With Anonimatum you anonymise and remove metadata on the same platform, on our own EU servers and with no third parties.
How to remove the metadata
- 1
Open “Remove metadata”
In the Anonimatum app, open “Remove metadata” from the home screen.
- 2
Add files or a folder
Drop PDF, Word, Excel, PowerPoint or image files, or pick a whole folder.
- 3
Download the clean files
A single file comes back in the same format; several come back in a ZIP with their folders.
Security
Your PDFs never leave our servers in the EU
The same safeguards as the anonymizer, also for merging, converting or compressing.
Our own servers in the EU
Every tool runs on Anonimatum servers in France and Poland (OVHcloud). No third-party services or APIs: LibreOffice and OCR run on our own server.
We don’t keep the document
The PDF is processed in memory and returned straight away. Conversions use a temporary folder that is deleted when they finish.
History under your control
Group activity (operation and file name) is deleted according to the retention your administrator sets, from 1 to 365 days. The audit log only keeps the SHA-256 fingerprint.
Access with your account
You sign in with your Anonimatum account, with two-step verification, and each use is deducted from your plan’s PDF tools quota.
ENS Medium category
Politeia Soft is certified under Spain’s National Security Framework (ENS), Medium category, and the platform is designed for the GDPR.
Next to the anonymizer
Merge, reorder or convert, then anonymize or pseudonymize the result on the same platform before sharing it.
What is removed
- Author, title, dates and other PDF properties, plus XMP metadata
- Word, Excel and PowerPoint properties, including thumbnails
- EXIF in JPG, PNG and WebP photos, keeping the colour profile
- Single files or whole folders in one go
Who it is for
Data protection officers
A final check of documents before publishing them or handing them over in response to an access request.
Law firms and legal advisers
Briefs and contracts whose author or internal title must not reach the other party.
Public sector and transparency
Documents published on transparency portals or procurement profiles.
Communications and research
Reports, presentations and photos shared outside the organisation.
Why remove metadata with Anonimatum
The last step so a shared document reveals no more than it should.
Several formats at once
PDF, Office and images in a single upload, whole folders included.
Fits with anonymisation
Anonymise the content and clean the properties without switching platforms.
No third parties
Our own EU servers (OVHcloud, France and Poland), with no external APIs.
ENS and GDPR
Politeia Soft holds the Spanish ENS (MEDIUM category) and the platform is designed for the GDPR.
Common use cases
Publishing on a transparency portal
Remove the name of the officer who wrote the report before publishing it.
Sending a folder to a client
Clean all the PDFs, spreadsheets and presentations of a delivery in one go.
Answering an access request
After anonymising third-party data, make sure the properties do not reveal it either.
Photos for a case file
Remove the location and device from the EXIF before submitting them.
Frequently asked questions about metadata
What is PDF metadata?
Properties the document stores about itself, such as the title, the author or the dates. They are not visible on the pages, but anyone can see them in the file properties with an ordinary PDF reader.
Why can it be a privacy problem?
Because it often contains the name of whoever created the document, an internal title or, in photos, the location and the device. If you anonymise the content but leave the author in the properties, the document still says who wrote it.
Which formats are supported?
PDF, Word (.docx), Excel (.xlsx), PowerPoint (.pptx) and JPG, PNG and WebP images. You can upload several files or a whole folder; several files are downloaded as a ZIP with the same folder structure.
Do I need an account? Does it use my quota?
Yes, “Remove metadata” is part of the Anonimatum app and needs an account, with two-step verification available. It does not use your anonymisation page quota.
Is removing metadata enough to anonymise a document?
No. Metadata is only one part. Personal data in the text, tables or images is handled by the Anonimatum anonymiser; cleaning the properties is the final step before sharing.
Don’t let your documents say too much
Remove metadata on European servers, with no third parties, on the same platform you anonymise with.
Remove metadata in Anonimatum