Presenting messages in court

How to redact phone numbers and personal data in message exhibits

Last reviewed 2026-10-17 · 1 official source cited below

Message exhibits are full of personal data: phone numbers, addresses, account numbers, children’s names. Some of it must be removed before filing, and some you may choose to remove. The key is to redact properly and transparently.

What U.S. federal courts require

Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 5.2(a) says that unless the court orders otherwise, a filing that contains these items may include only:

1. the last four digits of a social-security or taxpayer-identification number;
2. the year of an individual’s birth;
3. a minor’s initials;
4. the last four digits of a financial-account number.

Phone numbers aren’t on that list, but many people redact third parties’ numbers for privacy, and state and family courts often have broader confidentiality rules. Check your court’s rules and any protective order.

How to redact properly

• Remove the text, don’t cover it. Drawing a black box over text in a PDF editor can leave the text underneath selectable and copyable. TextExhibits replaces matched phone numbers with [phone redacted] before the PDF is created, so the original number isn’t in the file at all.
• Mark every redaction visibly. A reader should see where something was removed.
• List what you redacted on the cover page (TextExhibits does this automatically), so nobody thinks content was altered.
• Keep an unredacted copy and the original export. The court may order it produced, and the SHA-256 on the cover page ties both versions to the same source file.
• Never change the wording of messages.

Automatic redaction has limits

TextExhibits looks for common phone formats (for example +1 (555) 010-0199, +44 7700 900123, 555-010-0142, 0049 30 1234567) with 7–15 digits and leaves dates and times alone. It can miss unusual formats, or catch other long numbers such as order numbers. Review every page before you file. There’s also an option for email addresses. Names and street addresses need manual review.

Sources

1. Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Rule 5.2 — Privacy Protection for Filings Made with the Court (Cornell LII)

Sources were opened and checked on 2026-10-17. Laws and rules change; always read the current version.