How to blur every piece of personal data in a product demo

Last updated 2026-08-30 · 7 min read

What is the short version?

A recorded demo of real working software contains real data. Patient names, phone numbers, payroll rows, invoice lines, other companies' logos sitting in a sidebar — all of it is on screen for the whole recording, and none of it can be published as it stands.

1. Go to Vizard Agent and upload the recording.
2. List everything that must be covered.
3. Say where it appears, or let Vizard Agent find the screens itself.

What do you need before you start?

The recording and a list of what counts as sensitive. Vizard Agent finds the screen-share sections and reads what is on them, but only you know which fields your obligations actually cover, and that list is the one thing it cannot infer.

• The recording. A whole session is fine.
• The list. Names, numbers, rows, logos, handles.
• The clips you want. If you are also cutting.
• The length. Per clip, if this is a batch.
• Your rules. What your policy or contracts require.

What do you type into Vizard Agent?

Enumerate the categories rather than describing them generally. Vizard Agent covers exactly what is on the list, and "personal information" means different things in different jurisdictions, so writing them out explicitly is what makes the redaction pass checkable afterwards.

Prompt

Variants worth knowing:

• Blur then cut. So no unredacted frame reaches a clip.
• A stricter list. Anything identifying, not just the obvious fields.
• A named jurisdiction. If your rules come from one.

What does Vizard Agent actually do?

Here is the order Vizard Agent worked in on a real recording of nearly three hours. The step that makes the redaction reliable is the nineteenth: it calibrated a detector to find where the screen sharing actually starts rather than guessing from the timeline.

1. Checks the uploaded video and the past project notes, then the available tools.
2. Starts transcribing the long recording and lists the effects library.
3. Samples frames across the whole recording and reviews them.
4. Finds the requested quotes in the transcript and reads the context around each.
5. Pulls word-level timings for the chosen lines and scans for further strong ones.
6. Grabs frames at every planned cut point and checks the framing there.
7. Finds the screen-share sections across the recording.
8. Calibrates the screen-share detector so the boundaries are accurate.
9. Builds a contact sheet of the demo section, scans it for product screens, then pulls those screens at full resolution and reads them up close.

Step 9 is the one that finds what you forgot. A list written from memory covers the fields you were thinking about; reading the actual screens at full size is how the second logo beside a button, or a handle strip along the top, turns up.

What does the result look like?

The source here was measured at 1920x1080, H.264, 25fps, 10209 seconds — a recording of two hours and fifty minutes. What comes out of it is a batch of short clips, each around forty-five seconds, with every listed field covered on every frame where it appears.

The redaction happens before the cutting rather than after. That order matters: blurring the clips you kept leaves the possibility that a frame you did not examine went out unredacted.

When does this not work well?

Redaction is a claim that nothing sensitive remains, and that is a strong claim. Vizard Agent covers what it is asked to cover and what it can read, which is not the same as guaranteeing a recording is safe.

• The list is the limit. Unlisted fields are not covered.
• Small text can be missed. Compressed video hides what it cannot resolve.
• Scrolling screens move fast. A row visible for two frames still counts.
• Blur can be reversible. Weak blur on known text is not redaction.
• Sign-off remains yours. Review before publishing; this is your obligation.

How do you fix a result that came back wrong?

Point at the frame or the field that is still showing. Vizard Agent keeps the detected screen-share sections, all the full-resolution screen captures and the contact sheets, so an extra field can be covered without re-scanning the whole recording.

• "You missed the invoice column." Added to the list and re-covered.
• "The blur is too weak." Strengthened, and re-checked at full resolution.
• "There is a logo at 1:12." Located from the captures already pulled.

How does Vizard Agent compare to doing it yourself?

By hand this means scrubbing hours of recording looking for anything identifying, masking each occurrence, and tracking those masks as the screen scrolls. It is the job most likely to be rushed, and the one where rushing is most expensive.

Common questions

How long a recording can Vizard Agent handle? Hours. Vizard Agent handled nearly three here, transcribed and scanned in full.

Does it find the screen sections itself? Yes. Vizard Agent detects the screen shares and calibrates where they start and end.

Will it catch things I forgot to list? Vizard Agent reads the screens at full resolution and flags what it sees, but your list governs.

Should I blur before or after cutting? Before. Vizard Agent redacts the source so no unexamined frame reaches a clip.

Can it cut the clips too? Yes. Vizard Agent cut a batch to a target length from the same pass here.

Is blurring enough to count as redaction? Only if it is strong enough. Light blur over known text can sometimes be reversed, so say if your obligations require the region to be covered outright rather than softened.

What about audio? Say so and Vizard Agent mutes spoken names and numbers as well as covering them on screen.

Does it handle third-party logos? Yes. They go on the same list as personal data and are covered the same way.

Who signs off on the result? You do. Vizard Agent does the work; the compliance decision stays with you.

Can I get a list of what was covered? Yes, and it is worth keeping. Vizard Agent works from the enumerated list and the screens it read, so the record of what was covered where is the evidence you need if anyone later asks how the recording was cleared.

Is it safer to demo on dummy data instead? Much safer, when you can. Redaction is a repair, and Vizard Agent doing it well is still second best to a demo account that never contained anyone's real details in the first place.

Does Vizard Agent check its own redaction? Yes. It reviews the covered screens at full resolution before delivery.