Blocklisting

The Blocklist is a list of excluded PI Values. You can use Blocklisting to identify personal information (PI) values that are not relevant for review or were falsely tagged, and then add those values to the Blocklist to prevent them from being identified again. Adding a term to the Blocklist removes all annotations for that term across the document set, any links associated with those annotations and all references to that term on the entity report.

With Blocklisting, you can:

• View a list of all PI values detected in unstructured documents
• Select one or more PI values and add them to the Blocklist
• Access documents where a PI value appears to validate whether it should be blocklisted
• Review all PI values on the Blocklist and remove them as needed
• View PI values from structured documents that have been excluded

Requirements

Blocklisting is only available for users with the aiR for Data Breach Response - Lead permission.

For more information on permissions, see User roles and permissions.

Blocklisting

The Blocklisting tab shows all terms that have been identified as PI in unstructured documents. From here, you can add these terms to the Blocklist. You can also view terms that have been added to the Blocklist and remove them from the Blocklist.

The Blocklisting table has the following columns:

Column	Description
PI Value	The value that was identified as PI
PI Type	The PI Type the value is currently assigned
Total Count	The total number of times the PI value appears across all documents
Document Count	The total number of documents the PI value appears on
Blocklisted	Whether or not the PI value has been added to the Blocklist There are two possible values: No—the value is not on the Blocklist and is currently being detected as PI Yes—the value is on the Blocklist and is prevented from being detected as PI
Blocklisted By	If the value is on the Blocklist, this column contains the name of the user who completed the action.
Blocklisted On	If the value is on the Blocklist, this column contains the timestamp of when the action was completed. The timestamp format reflects the date format configured in your browser settings.

Excluded Cell Values

The Excluded Cell Values tab shows cell values from structured documents where the column was identified to contain PI, but the cell value shown does not match the expected pattern associated with the PI type of the column itself. Therefore, these values are not being identified as PI and won’t be linked to an entity or appear on the entity report.

The Excluded Cell Values table has the following columns:

Column	Description
PI Value	The value of the cell being excluded
PI Type	The PI type assigned to the column that contains the excluded cell value
PI Count	The total count of the PI value across structured documents
Total Documents	The count of documents the PI value appears on

Reviewing and Blocklisting terms

Reviewing and blocklisting terms is a key step in refining your PI detection results and ensuring that your analysis focuses on the information that matters. This stage allows you to evaluate detected PI values, prioritize those with the greatest impact, and curate a Blocklist that improves accuracy across your project. By filtering high‑volume detections, examining priority PI types, and managing both additions to and removals from the Blocklist, you maintain control over how PI is interpreted and annotated. Because updates only take effect after rerunning the Blocklisting and Compile Insights stages, this process becomes an essential, iterative part of maintaining clean, reliable data throughout your review.

Suggested Blocklisting workflow

To get the highest return from Blocklisting, review terms in the Blocklisting tab after selecting your PI detectors, after running Data Analysis for the first time, and prior to review. These workflows can also be executed during the review process.

Following is the suggested method of prioritizing terms for review:

1. On the Blocklisting tab, filter the table so items with the highest PI count are at the top. This ensures that the PI values you review and add to the Blocklist have the greatest impact across the entire dataset.
2. Focus on high-priority PI types and analyze their results by filtering the table for the specific PI type.
3. Once you have finished blocklisting PI values, rerun the Blocklisting and Compile Insights stages of Data Analysis. This updates the PI annotations on the documents and PI counts on the Project Dashboard and Blocklisting tabs.

Blocklisting PI values

If you identify a term that you want to add to the Blocklist:

1. Select the checkbox next to each PI value that you want to blocklist. You can select multiple values at a time.
2. Click the Add to Blocklist mass action.
3.   In the confirmation dialog, click Continue.
   

   The Blocklisted column updates to Yes, and the Blocklisted By and Blocklisted On columns display the name of the user who completed the action and the date.
   

Once you have finished blocklisting PI values, rerun the Blocklisting and Compile Insights stages of Data Analysis.
This updates the PI annotations on the documents and PI counts on the Project Dashboard and Blocklisting tabs.

Removing PI values from the Blocklist

PI values that are currently on the Blocklist have a value of Yes in the Blocklisted column.

To remove PI values from the Blocklist:

1. Select the checkbox next to each PI value that you want to remove. You can select multiple values at a time.
2. Click the Remove from Blocklist mass action.
3. In the confirmation dialog, click Continue.
   

   The Blocklisted column updates to No.
   

After you remove PI values from the Blocklist, rerun the Blocklisting and Compile Insights stages of Data Analysis. This updates the PI annotations on the documents and PI counts on the Project Dashboard and Blocklisting tabs.

Viewing Excluded PI values from structured documents

During PI detection in structured documents, aiR for Data Breach Response identifies table columns that contain PI and analyzes individual cell values to confirm they match the expected format for the column's PI type. For example, if a column is named Passport Number, aiR for Data Breach Response checks each cell value to confirm it matches the format of a passport number. If a cell value does not match the expected format, aiR for Data Breach Response excludes it from PI detection and displays it on the Excluded Cell Values tab for transparency.

Overriding excluded PI Values

For values that have been excluded for the reasons above, you can choose to override this decision so they are included as PI using the Include mass action.

To override Excluded PI values:

1. Select the checkbox next to the value. You can select multiple values at a time.
2. Select the Include mass action. In the confirmation dialog, click Continue.
   • The value disappears from the list when the action is complete.
3. Once you have finished, rerun the Blocklisting and Compile Insights stages of Data Analysis. This updates the PI annotations on the documents and PI counts on the Project Dashboard and Blocklisting tab.

Considerations

Review the following considerations before and during blocklisting to ensure accurate PI detection results across your project.

• After you add or remove PI values from the Blocklist, PI annotations on documents and the PI counts on the Project Dashboard and Blocklisting tabs do not update until you rerun the Blocklisting and Compile Insights stages of Data Analysis.

• Only PI values from unstructured documents appear on the Blocklisting tab. However, if a PI value that you add to the Blocklist also appears on a structured document, the annotation in the structured document is also removed.

• When there are more than one million unique PI detections from unstructured documents, the Blocklisting tab may take longer to load.