What is cloak.business?
Last Updated: 2026-02-12
Mission#
cloak.business exists to make privacy protection accessible, transparent, and reliable. Organizations of every size should be able to detect and remove personally identifiable information (PII) from text, images, and documents — without sending data to third parties, without complex setup, and without compromising on accuracy.
Built on Microsoft Presidio#
cloak.business is built on top of Microsoft Presidio, an open-source SDK for PII detection and anonymization. Presidio provides a proven, extensible framework, and cloak.business extends it with hundreds of custom recognizers, multilingual NLP models, image redaction, and a full suite of client applications.
Regex-First Architecture#
At its core, cloak.business uses a deterministic, regex-first detection strategy. The platform includes 317 custom pattern recognizers covering structured data formats that follow known patterns:
- National ID numbers, passport numbers, driver licenses
- Tax identification numbers, social security numbers
- Credit card numbers (Visa, Mastercard, Amex, and more)
- IBANs, BICs, bank account numbers
- Phone numbers, email addresses, IP addresses
- Medical record numbers, license plates, VAT IDs
Pattern-based detection is fast, predictable, and produces consistent results — the same input always yields the same output.
NLP Models for Unstructured Data#
Not all PII follows a pattern. Names, locations, and organizations appear in free-form text with no fixed format. cloak.business uses three NLP engines to catch these:
| Engine | Languages | Strength |
|---|---|---|
| spaCy | 25 languages | Fast, accurate named entity recognition |
| Stanza NER | 7 languages | Stanford-developed, high-accuracy NER |
| XLM-RoBERTa | 16 languages | Transformer-based, cross-lingual understanding |
All NLP models run on cloak.business's own servers in a German data center. No text is ever sent to Meta, Google, Stanford, or any other third party. Your data stays in the EU, processed entirely on infrastructure we control.
Coverage at a Glance#
| Metric | Value |
|---|---|
| Entity types | 390+ |
| Countries covered | 75+ |
| Pattern recognizers | 317 |
| UI languages | 48 |
| OCR languages | 38 |
| Country presets | 131+ |
Five Anonymization Methods#
Once PII is detected, cloak.business offers five ways to handle it:
| Method | What it does | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Replace | Substitutes with a placeholder | John Smith → <PERSON> |
| Redact | Removes entirely | John Smith → (empty) |
| Hash (SHA-256) | One-way cryptographic hash | John Smith → a1b2c3d4... |
| Encrypt (AES-256-GCM) | Reversible encryption with key | John Smith → eyJhbGci... |
| Mask | Partially obscures | 555-123-4567 → ***-***-4567 |
Available on Every Platform#
cloak.business meets users where they work:
- Web Application — Full-featured browser interface at cloak.business/app
- Desktop Application — Native app for Windows, macOS, and Linux (built with Tauri)
- Office Add-in — Anonymize directly inside Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint
- MCP Server — Connect AI tools like Claude Desktop and Cursor for in-workflow anonymization
- REST API — Integrate PII detection and anonymization into your own applications
Compliance & Certifications#
| Standard | Status |
|---|---|
| ISO 27001:2022 | Certified |
| GDPR | Fully compliant |
| EU Data Residency | All processing in Germany |
| Privacy by Design | GDPR Article 25 compliant |
All data processing takes place in a German data center. No user data is stored beyond the duration of a request. No data is used for model training. No data is shared with third parties.
Learn More#
- Platform Features — Detailed feature breakdown
- System Architecture — How the platform works
- Security & Privacy — Security posture and data handling
- Pricing & Plans — Token system and plan comparison
- Entity & Preset Inventory — Complete list of detected entity types
- Image Anonymization — Image redaction capabilities