Loom AI Labs

Security investigation Implemented prototype

Privacy-Aware Context Preparation for RAG

This investigation treats privacy preparation as an application-visible stage with configurable direction, storage posture and audit evidence.

Status
Implemented prototype
Contributor
Loom AI Labs maintainers
Updated
2026-07-25
Reading time
6 min

Abstract

Research question

Where should detection, redaction and encrypted-original handling occur before retrieval or generation?

Context

A prompt instruction to ignore personal data does not remove that data from provider requests or logs. Context should be prepared before it enters retrieval and generation paths.

Proposed approach

  • Detect candidate personal information at explicit input and output boundaries.
  • Redact provider-facing context according to application policy.
  • Store encrypted originals only when the use case requires them.

Implementation

  • Configurable local PII preparation in a Spring Boot demo
  • Redacted context and audit output visible side by side
  • A no-remote-model mode for deterministic inspection

Observations

  1. 01

    Visible preparation stages are easier to test than prompt-only privacy claims.

  2. 02

    Local processing supports useful demonstrations without sending sample identifiers to a model provider.

Limitations

This work reports an implementation-linked investigation. It is not a peer-reviewed paper, certification or customer case study.
  • Pattern-based detection does not cover every identifier.
  • The implementation is a technical control, not a compliance determination.

Reproduce or inspect

Revision note and next questions

Last revised 2026-07-25 against AI Fabric 0.4.0 and the linked public artifacts.

  • How should organization-specific detectors be composed and evaluated?
  • What retention policies should apply to encrypted originals?

Linked live proof

live Privacy and security

Privacy Shield

A support message containing synthetic personal data is detected, redacted and audited before downstream processing.

  • PII handling
  • Redaction
  • Audit
  • Local processing

Input and output detection direction is configurable.

Continue

Read the evidence, then challenge the boundary.

Use the linked implementation and experiment to reproduce the observation or open a focused counterexample.