No Data Leaks in BIP – Automated Protection with Mycroft

Public Information Bulletin (BIP) is one of the most important tools of transparency in public administration in Poland. Every day, thousands of offices, public institutions, and government bodies publish documents, announcements, decisions, and reports in it. It is an invaluable source of information for citizens — but also an area where unintentional personal data breaches often occur.

So how can transparency of information be reconciled with data security? The answer lies in automating publication processes and controlling content using artificial intelligence.

According to the Polish Act on Access to Public Information, public sector entities are obliged to publish documents containing information about their activities in the Public Information Bulletin. In practice, this means thousands of pages of administrative decisions, recruitment announcements, contract registers, or asset declarations.

The problem arises when among these published materials there are personal data that should not be publicly available — for example, PESEL numbers, home addresses, contact details, case numbers, or land and mortgage register numbers.

A leak of such information may violate GDPR, undermine citizens’ trust, and lead to financial penalties for the data controller.

Based on the experience of Data Protection Officers (DPOs), the most common issues include:

• publishing documents without anonymizing personal data first,
• difficulty in detecting data contained in scanned documents (no text layer),
• lack of tools for regular content monitoring of BIP,
• outdated publications still containing personal data, even though the legal basis for their disclosure has expired.

These problems are not caused by negligence but by organizational limitations — public offices manage thousands of files, and manually reviewing them is time-consuming and prone to error.

The solution to this challenge is Mycroft BIP Scanner – a specialized tool designed for public administration. It uses artificial intelligence (AI) and optical character recognition (OCR) to automatically analyze the content of Public Information Bulletins.

Once the website address is provided, the system automatically scans all published files (PDF, DOCX, JPG, HTML) and detects potential personal data that should not be disclosed. Importantly, it works without the need for integration with the BIP system and does not require access to its source code.

Key features of Mycroft BIP Scanner:

• 🔍 automatically detects personal data in BIP content and attachments,
• 🧠 recognizes names, addresses, PESEL numbers, ID documents, and many other categories of data,
• 📄 analyzes scanned and archived documents (thanks to OCR),
• 🧭 pinpoints the exact location of detected data (URL address, navigation path in the BIP menu),
• 📊 generates interactive reports and datasets that can be filtered and exported.

Thanks to these features, offices can quickly identify which files require correction or removal — before an actual personal data breach occurs.

The second component of the solution is Mycroft Sweeper – a desktop application for local document anonymization. It enables offices to prepare documents for publication in BIP in a secure and GDPR-compliant way.

The application works entirely locally – all data processing operations take place on the user’s computer, without using the cloud. As a result, even confidential documents (e.g., administrative decisions, asset declarations, reports) can be processed with full control over personal data.

What Mycroft Sweeper can do:

• detects personal data in editable and scanned documents,
• allows quick removal or masking of sensitive information,
• enables anonymization of larger sections (stamps, signatures, maps, charts),
• processes up to 100 pages in 3 minutes,
• generates ready-to-use, anonymized PDF files.

Thanks to these capabilities, Mycroft Sweeper becomes an indispensable tool for public institutions that publish documents in the Public Information Bulletin.

If you want to learn how to anonymize documents effectively and safely in compliance with GDPR, read our article:

• 👉 Document Anonymization – How to Do It Effectively and Safely

Together, Mycroft BIP Scanner and Mycroft Sweeper form a complete system for personal data protection during publication processes:

• Sweeper – prepares and anonymizes documents before publication,
• BIP Scanner – monitors and detects data after publication, directly within the Bulletin. This combination helps minimize the risk of data leaks, ensures compliance with GDPR, and provides full adherence to the principles of legality and data minimization.

Implementing Mycroft solutions in public sector organizations brings not only greater security but also tangible operational benefits:

• Time savings – automated analysis instead of manual document checks,
• Risk reduction – lower likelihood of GDPR violations,
• Legal compliance – easier fulfillment of anonymization and publication obligations,
• Transparency and trust – citizens gain access to public information without risking exposure of private data.

The Public Information Bulletin is a cornerstone of transparency in public administration. However, as the volume of published documents grows, so does the risk of unintentional personal data disclosure.

With Mycroft solutions, public institutions can effectively monitor and protect personal data — both before and after publication.

• 🧹 Mycroft Sweeper – automatically anonymizes documents before publication in BIP or public release.
• 🛡️ Mycroft Guard – analyzes IT resources within an organization, detects files containing personal data, and supports GDPR compliance.
• 🌐 Mycroft BIP Scanner – scans published Public Information Bulletins to detect accidental exposure of personal data in documents and attachments.

Together, they form a comprehensive ecosystem for data protection in public administration – from document creation and processing to secure publication.