Redacted Text
A black bar over text—what is written in its place?
✅ NormativeSettled. The requirement holds as written.📄 Page ruleCan be applied from the page alone.Read §7.3.8 in the RFC ↗
Each contiguous redacted span MUST be rendered as one [REDACTED] marker, in the position the
suppressed text occupied. Visible text and any printed exemption code MUST be kept; the hidden
characters and their count MUST NOT be inferred.
When it applies
Text blacked out or boxed over in the source document.
Reading the examples. Each one pairs a source page with the output the rule expects. ✅ Sample: the rule applies. ❌ Counter-sample: it looks like it applies and does not, or a rendering got it wrong. A non-conforming output, in red, is shown only for contrast. … marks content left out of an excerpt.
The rendering
The marker sits where the suppressed text was, so the surrounding line still reads correctly:
Account holder: [REDACTED]
Where only part of a value is covered, the marker MUST replace only the covered part, and the visible characters MUST be kept verbatim — not normalised, padded or reconstructed. Printed masking characters are visible characters, escaped where they are Markdown syntax (see Escaping Printed Marks (§7.2.4)):
Account number: \*\*\*\*-\*\*\*\*-\*\*\*\*-4471
When boxes are requested, a redacted span has a box like any other printed region — see Boxes and Granularity (§3.3).
Why a positive marker beats silence
A redaction is an assertion: something was here and was deliberately removed. If the output emits nothing, a reader cannot tell "the field was blank" from "the field was suppressed" — a meaningful difference in a legal or regulatory document.
[REDACTED] is the same bracketed-placeholder shape used for Signatures (§7.3.10) ([signature]) and
for QR Codes and Bar Codes (§7.3.7) ().
a redaction bar inside a sentence
One black bar where the appellant's name was, between filed by and , against the response of the. The bold case number and council name on either side are printed and kept.
Source page
Expected output
HAVING SEEN the electronic file formed on account of the appeal for review 04871/OTAIP/AR/2018 filed by [REDACTED] , against the response of the Municipal Council of Puente Alvara, the following resolution is hereby issued.
HAVING SEEN the electronic file formed on account of the appeal for review **04871/OTAIP/AR/2018** filed by [REDACTED] , against the response of the **Municipal Council of Puente Alvara**, the following resolution is hereby issued.a redaction bar inside a transcript line
Line 4: Was ████ paying that before? — one black bar in the middle of a question, the rest of
the page untouched. The transcript lines follow Transcript Pages (§6.11).
Source page
Expected output · excerpt, lines 1–5
83
A My delivery van insurance. Q And what's that? A $150 a month. Q Was [REDACTED] paying that before? A Yes, he was.
…
83
A My delivery van insurance.
Q And what's that?
A $150 a month.
Q Was [REDACTED] paying that before?
A Yes, he was.
<!-- … -->Exemption codes
A redacted region that prints an exemption code MUST be rendered as [REDACTED: code] —
[REDACTED: (b)(5)] — with the code copied exactly, once. Unrelated text near the region MUST stay
outside the marker.
a redaction that prints its exemption code
Under Cybercrime, a dashed box the height of eight bullets prints only (b)(5); the eight
bullet glyphs remain in the margin, their text gone. The code and the surviving bullets are both
content the page prints: the eight bullets stay as eight list items, and the code appears once,
inside the marker, at the start of the redacted span.
Source page
Source: U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), FOIA production document (public domain)
Expected output · excerpt, the redacted section
Case 1:23-cv-06353-RMI Document 20-8 Filed 12/14/23 Page 8 of 21
…
Cybercrime
[REDACTED: (b)(5)]
2023-ICLI-00018 136
REL0000006328
Case 1:23-cv-06353-RMI Document 20-8 Filed 12/14/23 Page 8 of 21
<!-- … -->
<u>Cybercrime</u>
- [REDACTED: (b)(5)]
2023-ICLI-00018 136
REL0000006328Neighbouring rules, and how they differ
More
Sample sources1 +
Public-domain U.S. federal government source material.
- U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), FOIA production document
Rule id text-redacted-text · text marks