Privacy risk used to mean one thing: someone stealing your password. In 2026 it means several different things at once — a photo you shared that quietly carries the GPS coordinates of where it was taken, a PDF whose "properties" tab still has your real name in it, a data broker selling your address to anyone who pays, a chatbot logging the customer data you pasted into a prompt, or a video that was never actually filmed at all. None of these threats are solved by the same tool, which is why this list covers five different, narrow tools rather than one do-it-all app — each one actually does its specific job well, instead of doing five jobs badly.
The short version
If you share files publicly, start with RemoveMD (strips hidden metadata from photos, PDFs and more) or PII Blackout (permanently redacts sensitive info like SSNs from PDFs, pixel-level, not just visually). If you're worried about your personal information sitting with data brokers, PrivacyHawk automates the opt-out requests instead of you filing them one by one. If your team sends real customer data into an LLM, Redactly strips the personal info out before it ever reaches the AI provider. And if you need to tell whether a photo, audio clip or video was faked by AI, Reality Defender is the enterprise-grade option built for exactly that.
1. RemoveMD — strip hidden metadata before you share a file
Every photo or document you share online quietly carries hidden data most people never think to check — the exact GPS location a photo was taken, or your name buried in a PDF's file properties. RemoveMD strips that out before you share the file, processing everything in memory only (nothing is stored) and requiring no account at all. It covers 12+ file formats — images, PDFs, audio, video and Office documents.
- Good for: anyone who regularly shares photos, PDFs or documents publicly and wants the hidden metadata gone first.
- Pricing: free for 5 files/batch (50MB max); Pro is €4.99/month for unlimited files up to 2GB each; pay-as-you-go credits and an enterprise API tier also exist.
- Limitation: the free tier is quite restrictive, and technical users can get the same result for free with the command-line tool ExifTool — RemoveMD's value is mostly in not needing to touch a terminal.
2. PII Blackout — permanent, pixel-level redaction for PDFs
PII Blackout is desktop software that finds and permanently blacks out social security numbers, bank account numbers and other sensitive information in PDF documents — without uploading anything online. The key detail is that it redacts at the pixel level, meaning the data is genuinely gone, not just visually covered by a black box that can be undone (a mistake that's caused real leaks before). It includes OCR, so it also works on scanned documents, and can batch-process entire folders.
- Good for: independent lawyers, small legal practices and small businesses handling sensitive documents who need a real (not cosmetic) redaction guarantee.
- Pricing: free tier limited to 3 PDFs/day (15 pages max); Personal and Team paid plans exist but pricing isn't published on the site.
- Limitation: desktop-only (Windows/macOS), so it doesn't fit a distributed team that needs a shared web tool.
3. PrivacyHawk — delete your data-broker footprint automatically
Data brokers accumulate old accounts and forgotten subscriptions tied to your personal information, and most people have no idea how many of these exist or how to get out of them. PrivacyHawk finds them and automatically files deletion requests — and unlike a one-time scan, it keeps doing this monthly, since brokers frequently re-list your data even after a successful removal.
- Good for: individuals and families who want to actively reduce their exposure to data brokers and identity theft, not just find out how bad it is.
- Pricing: free scan; Premium is $19.99/month ($74.99/year); Platinum is $29.99/month ($124.99/year) and adds identity-theft insurance up to $5M; family plans for up to 4 people are available.
- Limitation: it's a mobile app only (no web dashboard), and the free tier is scan-only — actual removal requires a paid plan.
4. Redactly — keep PII out of your prompts to AI models
If your product sends real user data into a large language model — support tickets, chat logs, form submissions — that data reaches whichever AI provider you're using unless something strips it first. Redactly is an API that automatically detects and masks personal information like names and addresses in text before it's sent to an AI model, doing the detection locally rather than routing your data through yet another third party first. It also uses contextual substitution, meaning the redacted prompt still makes sense to the model, and it works on both what goes into the model and what comes back out.
- Good for: AI/ML engineering teams that need to sanitize data before it hits an LLM or vector database, particularly under GDPR/HIPAA/SOC 2 obligations.
- Pricing: quote-only, no public pricing page.
- Limitation: it's a newer product with less track record than established platforms like Portkey, and its site is hard to self-serve evaluate (it blocks automated scraping tools).
5. Reality Defender — tell whether audio, video or images were faked by AI
As AI-generated audio and video get harder to distinguish from the real thing, deepfake fraud has become a genuine enterprise risk — fake video calls impersonating executives, cloned voices authorizing wire transfers. Reality Defender scans audio, video, images and documents in real time and flags what was AI-generated, with integrations into tools like Zoom and Teams and call centers, plus on-premises/air-gapped deployment for organizations that can't send data to the cloud. It's recognized by Gartner as a leader in deepfake detection.
- Good for: financial institutions, media organizations, legal teams and call centers that need to verify authenticity of audio/video in real time.
- Pricing: free tier with 50 scans/month; Business is $399/year (1,000 scans/month, 1 user); Enterprise is quote-based with unlimited scans/users.
- Limitation: the Business tier only supports a single user, so teams will need to talk to sales for Enterprise pricing.
| Tool | What it protects | Starting price | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| RemoveMD | Hidden file metadata (GPS, author info) | Free (limited) / €4.99/mo | Anyone sharing files publicly |
| PII Blackout | Sensitive text in PDFs | Free (limited) | Lawyers, small firms with sensitive docs |
| PrivacyHawk | Data-broker exposure | Free scan / $19.99/mo | Individuals reducing digital footprint |
| Redactly | PII in AI/LLM prompts | Quote-only | AI/ML teams sanitizing data before LLM calls |
| Reality Defender | AI-generated audio/video/images | Free (50 scans/mo) / $399/yr | Finance, media, legal, call centers |
None of these five tools compete with each other — they cover five distinct exposure points, and a thorough privacy setup in 2026 realistically means picking more than one. If you had to start with just one: individuals should start with PrivacyHawk (it's the one actively removing your data, not just protecting a single file), while teams building AI products should start with Redactly, since that's the exposure point most companies haven't even thought about yet.