ph-redact

XSLT-based XML document anonymizer for e-invoicing formats. Replaces all sensitive and personally identifiable data while preserving document structure, monetary values, tax information, and other non-sensitive business data.

Format detection uses the DDD (Document Details Determinator) library, which also handles unwrapping of SBDH and XHE envelopes.

The creation of this repository was inspired by https://github.com/valitoolorg/zebra

Supported Formats

• UBL 2.1 - OASIS Universal Business Language (Invoice, CreditNote, Order, DespatchAdvice, and all other UBL 2.1 document types)
• CII D16B - UN/CEFACT Cross Industry Invoice

What Gets Anonymized

Category	Examples	Replaced With
Party names	Company names, registration names, trading names	Anonymous Party
Contact details	Phone, fax, email	+00 000 0000000, anonymous@example.com
Person information	First/family/middle name, job title, birth date	Anonymous Person, 1900-01-01
Postal addresses	Street, city, postal code, region, PO box	Anonymous Street, Anonymous City, 00000
Party identifiers	Endpoint IDs, GLN, party IDs	ANONYMIZED-PARTY-ID, ANONYMIZED-ENDPOINT
Tax identifiers	VAT numbers, company registration IDs	ANONYMIZED-TAX-ID, ANONYMIZED-COMPANY-ID
Financial accounts	IBAN, BIC, account names	ANONYMIZED-IBAN, ANONYMIZED-BIC
Payment cards	Card number, cardholder name, CVV	0000000000000000, 000
Document IDs	Invoice number, UUID, order/contract references	ANONYMIZED-DOC-ID, ANONYMIZED-REF
Payment references	Payment IDs, mandate IDs, buyer references	ANONYMIZED-PAYMENT-ID, ANONYMIZED-BUYER-REF
Notes	Free-text notes (may contain any sensitive data)	Anonymized note
URIs	Website URLs, communication URIs	https://www.example.com, ANONYMIZED-URI
Binary attachments	Embedded document content	Replaced with placeholder

What Is Preserved

• Monetary amounts (line totals, tax amounts, grand totals)
• Tax rates and category codes
• Currency codes
• Country identification codes (ISO 3166)
• Document type codes
• Item/product names and descriptions
• Quantities and unit codes
• Dates (issue date, due date, delivery date)
• UBL version and customization IDs
• Profile and process identifiers
• Tax scheme identifiers (e.g. VAT, S)

Usage

Command Line

Build the standalone jar and run it:

mvn clean package
java -jar target/ph-redact-full.jar [options] <files...>

Options:

Option	Description	Default
-t, --target	Output directory	Current directory
-s, --suffix	Output filename suffix	-anonymized
-f, --format	Force format (ubl21 or cii-d16b)	Auto-detect
--verbose	Enable verbose output	Off
-h, --help	Show help
-V, --version	Show version

Examples:

# Anonymize a single file (format auto-detected)
java -jar ph-redact-full.jar invoice.xml

# Anonymize multiple files into a specific directory
java -jar ph-redact-full.jar -t /output/dir invoice1.xml invoice2.xml cii-invoice.xml

# Force CII format and use custom suffix
java -jar ph-redact-full.jar -f cii-d16b -s -redacted invoice.xml

# Verbose output
java -jar ph-redact-full.jar --verbose *.xml

The output file is written to the target directory with the suffix appended before the file extension. For example, invoice.xml becomes invoice-anonymized.xml.

Java API

// Explicit format
XMLAnonymizer aAnonymizer = new XMLAnonymizer (EAnonymizationFormat.UBL_21);
aAnonymizer.anonymize (new File ("invoice.xml"), new File ("invoice-anonymized.xml"));

// Auto-detect format (uses DDD)
XMLAnonymizer.anonymizeAutoDetect (new File ("input.xml"), new File ("output.xml"));

// DOM-based
Document aDoc = DOMReader.readXMLDOM (new File ("invoice.xml"));
XMLAnonymizer aAnonymizer = new XMLAnonymizer (EAnonymizationFormat.CII_D16B);
Document aResult = aAnonymizer.anonymize (aDoc);

Standalone XSLT

The XSLT stylesheets can be used independently with any XSLT 1.0 processor:

# UBL 2.1
xsltproc src/main/resources/xslt/ubl21-anonymize.xslt invoice.xml > invoice-anonymized.xml

# CII D16B
xsltproc src/main/resources/xslt/cii-d16b-anonymize.xslt cii-invoice.xml > cii-invoice-anonymized.xml

Building

Requires Java 17+ and Maven.

mvn clean package

The build produces two artifacts (replacing x.y.z with the actual version number):

• target/ph-redact-x.y.z-SNAPSHOT.jar - Library jar
• target/ph-redact-full.jar - Standalone executable jar with all dependencies

Maven Coordinates

To use the library in Maven (replacing x.y.z with the effective version number):

<dependency>
  <groupId>com.helger</groupId>
  <artifactId>ph-redact</artifactId>
  <version>x.y.z</version>
</dependency>

License

Apache License, Version 2.0

News and Noteworthy

v1.0.0 - 2026-04-24

• Initial version