How it works
From adding a document to reading the AI's answer with the real names back.
The hard part of using AI with your documents is keeping the names and confidential details out of the prompt. BriefSafe marks them on your computer, a person approves each document, and only then is it ready to copy into your AI tool.
Each project has five steps. The step bar at the top of the project shows them, each with its count.
- Add documents. Drop files on the project's page: Word (.docx), Excel (.xlsx), PowerPoint (.pptx), PDF, images, Outlook emails (.msg and .eml) and text files. Scanned pages and photos are read on this computer or, if your organization chooses, in its own Azure. Only the words are read.
- Review and approve. BriefSafe highlights names, contact details, addresses, identifying numbers, places and organizations, and your own words. For each one, choose Replace or Keep, and highlight anything it missed. The same person gets the same placeholder across a project. Only text is carried over: pictures, charts, comments and formatting are left out. When every suggestion is decided, you approve the document. The approval is recorded with your Windows user name, the time and a fingerprint of the approved file. Found a miss later? Undo approval puts the document back for review.
- Work with your AI. Tick approved files and copy them, as files or as text, into your AI tool: Claude, Copilot, ChatGPT or another. Or write your prompt with real names: Copy for AI copies it with the names swapped for placeholders. Paste the AI's answer back to read it with the real names, on your computer.
- Finish documents. Drop a Word, Excel or text file your AI made. BriefSafe puts the real names back inside it, layout kept, and you open it or save a copy where you choose.
- Close the project. When the work is done, BriefSafe deletes the project's documents, its placeholder table and its AI history, and keeps its log.
What it can't do
It takes out who, not what. What happened stays in the text.
What BriefSafe does. It finds names and other personal details in a document and replaces them with placeholders before the text goes to an AI tool. You review every replacement and approve the result. You can replace anything, not only what BriefSafe finds: if a job title, a place or an event would tell a reader who someone is, highlight it and replace it too. Before you approve, read the copy as a stranger would. If they could tell who it's about, replace a little more.
It can't see or control what you send. BriefSafe gets the approved copy ready. What you paste into an AI tool, and what that tool does with it, is up to you and the tool. The log records what was approved and copied, never the text. BriefSafe can't tell what reached the AI tool.
BriefSafe protects what you copy out with its buttons. It can't stop other programs running as you on the same computer from reading your files, for example an AI app that reads files on your computer, or Windows Recall.
A person approves every document. Suggestions can miss names. Detection is a starting point, not a guarantee. Read each document through before you approve it. The person who approves each document is the safeguard.
What stays on your computer
- Your documents, the copies being reviewed and the approved copies, until you copy one into your AI tool yourself. Scanned pages and photos are read on this computer or, if your organization chooses, in its own Azure. Only the words are read.
- The placeholder table. It lists the real name or detail behind each placeholder, such as [PERSON_KRT_001], so names can be put back. It's encrypted and stays on your computer, and its encryption key is tied to your Windows account.
- The history of your prompts and AI responses on Work with your AI, encrypted like the placeholder table, until you close the project.
- Your What to look for list, your own words, and the log.
The app encrypts the placeholder table and the AI history. It doesn't encrypt the documents, your own words or the log. Windows file access protects them, so keep the computer where only the right people can use it.
What can leave your computer
Six things can leave. Here is each one, and what it's set to on a new install. BriefSafe's Help page lists the same six.
- Cloud scanning, if you turn it on. Pictures of scanned pages and photos, with the names still in them, go to your organization's Azure resource to be read. Off until you turn it on.
- Licence activation. When BriefSafe activates this computer or releases it, it sends the licence number, the licence's fingerprint and a computer code (a one-way code made from Windows' id for this computer). Starting the trial sends only a computer code. Never documents.
- The daily licence check. While BriefSafe is open and has a licence, it sends the same three things once a day, to check the licence is still good and to pick up a renewed licence. If the licence was refunded or its invoice cancelled, adding and approving documents stop. If the server can't be reached, nothing changes. The trial and the demo don't check. Never documents.
- The update check, if you turn it on. BriefSafe asks its website for a newer version. The request shows BriefSafe's version number and this computer's internet address, nothing else. Off until you turn it on.
- The backup file, wherever you put it. It is locked with your passphrase. It holds each project's decisions, placeholder table, log and settings, and your What to look for list, including your own words, and the licence. It doesn't hold the documents. A folder that syncs, such as OneDrive, may keep older versions of it.
- Whatever you copy into your AI tool. Approved files, and your prompt once it's checked on Work with your AI, leave only when you copy them yourself. Text you copy may be kept by Windows clipboard history, if it's turned on.
Whether staff may turn something on, or use a given AI tool, is your organization's policy, set outside BriefSafe. BriefSafe keeps the record of how it was used.
What you choose
These are all the choices, and what each one is set to when you start.
BriefSafe settings, on Home
- What to look for. One list for every project: the kinds of detail BriefSafe looks for, each with a tick, your own words (always replaced), your own kinds of number, and words never replaced. New install: every kind on except money amounts and IP addresses; no words of your own.
- Backup. The folder the backup file goes to. New install: none chosen.
- Scanned pages. Read on this computer, or in the cloud by your organization's Azure resource. New install: Local (Tesseract on this PC).
- Licence. The licence for this computer, or the 5-document trial. New install: none entered.
- Updates. Whether BriefSafe checks for a new version, and how a new version installs: Tell me only, Ask before installing, or Install when I quit. New install: off; Ask before installing, once checking is on.
For each project
- How much BriefSafe suggests. Manual, Assisted or Auto-applied. A person still approves every document. New project: Assisted.
- Words for this project only. A nickname or a street that matters only in this case. New project: none.
On Windows
- Starting at Windows sign-in. A box in the setup file. Turn it off later in Windows Settings. New install: ticked.
What the log holds
The log records each settings change (who and when), and each use: each cloud scan with the address it went to, each approved file copied, each prompt checked, each approval and each undone approval. It holds Windows user names, project names, document numbers, counts and fingerprints. It holds no document text. Closing a project keeps its log.
For your privacy impact assessment
A data-flow sheet will describe what the app stores, where, and what can leave the computer. It will be posted here when BriefSafe opens.
Questions
Why not just use Claude Team, ChatGPT Business or Microsoft 365 Copilot?
With these plans, the whole document still goes to the provider, names included.
Use BriefSafe when:
- you'd rather the names never go to your AI provider;
- a client, or your own rules, ask you to take identifying details out;
- the file spans many documents about the same people, and the names must come back. The same name keeps the same placeholder across a project, and BriefSafe puts the names back in the AI's answer on your PC.
It works alongside those plans. You copy the approved text in, then paste the answer back into BriefSafe.
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We keep your email, and anything else you choose to give us, in our Microsoft 365. We use it to send you one email when BriefSafe opens. To be taken off the list, email support@briefsafe.ca.