Redacting PII
This feature is only accessible via the Python SDK.
Some organizations process Personally Identifiable Information (PII) such as names, phone numbers, and email addresses in their Large Language Model (LLM) workflows. Storing this data in Weights & Biases (W&B) Weave poses compliance and security risks.
The Sensitive Data Protection feature allows you to automatically redact Personally Identifiable Information (PII) from a trace before it is sent to Weave servers. This feature integrates Microsoft Presidio into the Weave Python SDK, which means that you can control redaction settings at the SDK level.
The Sensitive Data Protection feature introduces the following functionality to the Python SDK:
- A
redact_pii
setting, which can be toggled on or off in theweave.init
call to enable PII redaction. - Automatic redaction of common entities when
redact_pii = True
. - Customizable redaction fields using the configurable
redact_pii_fields
setting.
Enable PII redaction
To get started with the Sensitive Data Protection feature in Weave, complete the following steps:
-
Install the required dependencies:
pip install presidio-analyzer presidio-anonymizer
-
Modify your
weave.init
call to enable redaction. Whenredact_pii=True
, common entities are redacted by default:import weave
weave.init("my-project", settings={"redact_pii": True}) -
(Optional) Customize redaction fields using the
redact_pii_fields
parameter:weave.init("my-project", settings={"redact_pii": True, "redact_pii_fields":["CREDIT_CARD", "US_SSN"]})
For a full list of the entities that can be detected and redacted, see PII entities supported by Presidio.
Entities redacted by default
The following entities are automatically redacted when PII redaction is enabled:
CREDIT_CARD
CRYPTO
EMAIL_ADDRESS
ES_NIF
FI_PERSONAL_IDENTITY_CODE
IBAN_CODE
IN_AADHAAR
IN_PAN
IP_ADDRESS
LOCATION
PERSON
PHONE_NUMBER
UK_NHS
UK_NINO
US_BANK_NUMBER
US_DRIVER_LICENSE
US_PASSPORT
US_SSN
Redacting sensitive keys
In addition to PII redaction, the Weave SDK also supports redaction of custom keys via the sanitize helpers. This is useful when you want to protect additional sensitive data that might not fall under the PII category but needs to be kept private. Examples include:
- API keys
- Authentication headers
- Tokens
- Internal IDs
- Config values
Default redacted keys
Weave automatically redacts the following sensitive keys by default:
["api_key", "auth_headers", "authorization"]
Adding your own keys
You can extend this list with your own custom keys that you want to redact from traces:
import weave
from weave.utils import sanitize
client = weave.init("my-project")
# Add custom keys to redact
sanitize.add_redact_key("token")
sanitize.add_redact_key("client_id")
sanitize.add_redact_key("whatever_else")
token = "secret_token_123"
client_id = "123"
whatever_else = "456"
@weave.op()
def test():
a = token
b = client_id
c = whatever_else
return 1
When viewed in the Weave UI, the values of token
, client_id
, and whatever_else
will appear as "REDACTED"
:
token = "REDACTED"
client_id = "REDACTED"
whatever_else = "REDACTED"
Managing redacted keys
The sanitize module provides additional functions to manage redacted keys:
from weave.utils import sanitize
# Get the current list of redacted keys
current_keys = sanitize.get_redact_keys()
print(current_keys) # {'api_key', 'auth_headers', 'authorization', 'token', 'client_id', 'whatever_else'}
# Remove a key from the redaction list (if needed)
sanitize.remove_redact_key("whatever_else")
# Check if a specific key will be redacted (case-insensitive)
will_redact = sanitize.should_redact("TOKEN") # Returns True
Usage information
- This feature is only available in the Python SDK.
- Enabling redaction increases processing time due to the Presidio dependency.