# PII Shield

> Redacts personal data before it reaches an AI model, and restores it in the reply. Names, emails,
> phone numbers, ID numbers, addresses and API keys become stable tokens like [PERSON_1] on the way
> in, and the real values are put back on the way out — so an agent can act on a person it was never
> shown. Self-hostable. Nothing about a prompt is retained; only counts of what was masked.

PII Shield is a South African product used by teams who want staff to use Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini
and similar tools without customer, candidate or employee data leaving the company. One redaction
engine sits behind six different ways of using it, and one coverage config drives all six.

## The six surfaces

- **Gateway** — a drop-in base URL for anything talking to the Anthropic or OpenAI API. Transparent,
  so redaction happens on every request without a code change. The strongest guarantee of the six.
- **Browser extension** — masks what somebody types in the chat box before it is sent, on claude.ai,
  ChatGPT, Gemini, Grok, DeepSeek, Kimi, Mistral, Perplexity and Copilot. Chrome, Edge and Brave.
- **MCP server** — redaction and coverage tools for any MCP-aware agent. Cooperative: the agent
  chooses to call them.
- **Hosted connector** — connect your own ATS, CRM or helpdesk in the dashboard and paste one web
  address into Claude's Connectors screen. Claude talks to PII Shield; PII Shield talks to your
  system; records arrive tokenised. Several systems can share one address and one set of tokens.
  Nothing to install, works in claude.ai in a browser.
- **Claude Code plugin** — local hooks that redact file reads, command output and MCP results before
  Claude sees them, and restore real values before Claude writes to disk. Runs entirely on the
  machine, with no credential in flight.
- **Document redaction** — format-preserving redaction of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, PDF and text,
  plus scanned PDFs and images via OCR.

There is also a retrospective **Leak Audit**, which finds personal data that has already reached AI
chats and locks the values under a key held only by the customer's browser.

## Answers to things people ask

**Is this anonymisation?** No — it is reversible tokenisation, and only for the customer. The same
person keeps the same token for a whole session, and the real value is restored in the reply. That
reversibility is the point: it is what lets an agent email somebody it was never shown.

**Does PII Shield see the data?** Prompts, personal data and the token map live in memory for a
single request and are then discarded. Logs are counts by type plus a timestamp and status. Under
self-hosting the operator has no access at all.

**Does connecting my ATS to Claude directly protect it?** No. Claude then talks to the ATS itself
and there is nothing in between. It works, records come back, nothing looks broken, and every name
in them is real. The hosted connector exists precisely because of this.

**Does it satisfy GDPR or POPIA on its own?** It is the strongest single technical measure, because
personal data is not transferred to the model provider at all. It is not the whole obligation: a
lawful basis, a record of processing, a DPIA where risk is high, and notifying staff are all still
required. Free DPIA and employee-notice templates are published at the links below.

**What does it cost?** Free: 250 requests a month and 3 connected systems, no card. Starter: $19/mo,
100,000 requests, 10 connected systems. Team: $10/seat/mo, minimum 5 seats, 200,000 requests per
seat, 25 connected systems. Enterprise: custom, unlimited, self-hosted, SSO. Every surface is on
every plan — a plan buys volume and connected systems, not features.

## Pages

- [Home](https://piishield.ai/): what it is, the six surfaces, pricing.
- [Onboarding guide](https://piishield.ai/guide): setup end to end, about five minutes.
- [Connectors](https://piishield.ai/guide#connectors): connecting your own systems to Claude.
- [API & developer docs](https://piishield.ai/api): endpoints, authentication, coverage config.
- [Browser extension](https://piishield.ai/extension): install and what it covers.
- [DPIA template for AI tools](https://piishield.ai/dpia-template): free, fill-in.
- [Employee AI-use notice template](https://piishield.ai/employee-notice): free, fill-in.
- [Privacy policy](https://piishield.ai/privacy): what is and is not stored.
- [Data processing agreement](https://piishield.ai/dpa)
- [Terms](https://piishield.ai/terms)