Skip to main content
Navigate back to homepage
Open search bar.
Open main navigation menu

Main navigation

  • Study
    UCL Portico statue
    Study at UCL

    Being a student at UCL is about so much more than just acquiring knowledge. Studying here gives you the opportunity to realise your potential as an individual, and the skills and tools to thrive.

    • Undergraduate courses
    • Graduate courses
    • Short courses
    • Study abroad
    • Centre for Languages & International Education
  • Research
    Tree-of-Life-MehmetDavrandi-UCL-EastmanDentalInstitute-042_2017-18-800x500-withborder (1)
    Research at UCL

    Find out more about what makes UCL research world-leading, how to access UCL expertise, and teams in the Office of the Vice-Provost (Research, Innovation and Global Engagement).

    • Engage with us
    • Explore our Research
    • Initiatives and networks
    • Research news
  • Engage
    UCL Print room
    Engage with UCL

    Discover the many ways you can connect with UCL, and how we work with industry, government and not-for-profit organisations to tackle tough challenges.

    • Alumni
    • Business partnerships and collaboration
    • Global engagement
    • News and Media relations
    • Public Policy
    • Schools and priority groups
    • Visit us
  • About
    UCL welcome quad
    About UCL

    Founded in 1826 in the heart of London, UCL is London's leading multidisciplinary university, with more than 16,000 staff and 50,000 students from 150 different countries.

    • Who we are
    • Faculties
    • Governance
    • President and Provost
    • Strategy

Textwash

Breadcrumb trail

Research summary

In this project, UCL researchers developed software that removes personally identifying and sensitive information from text data. While many stakeholders (e.g. the police, healthcare providers, tech companies) are keen to share text data with researchers – for example, to evaluate or build information extraction approaches – a key impediment to date is the sensitive nature of the data. Individuals have the right to privacy, so text data would need to be anonymized before it can be shared. To do this automatically while retaining the usefulness for secondary computational analyses, Textwash was developed. The outcome of this project is the first empirically-validated and transparent anonymization software that puts all control in the hand of the users.

Textwash was supported by a proof-of-concept grant from SAGE.

Key findings

The Textwash project has seen significant advancements in the underlying algorithms and is growing to a multi-language project with additional funding from the Dutch Research Council (NWO). Textwash was further piloted as a key resource for the US National Archive of Criminal Justice Data for their mission to make research data widely available. 

Lead Investigator(s)
  • Dr Bennett Kleinberg, UCL Security and Crime Science 
  • Dr Toby Davies, UCL Security and Crime Science 
  • Maximilian Mozes, UCL Security and Crime Science 
Outputs 

More from UCL Engineering...

Engineering Foundation Year
UCL East Marshgate building at dusk

Programme Spotlight

Engineering Foundation Year

We'll help you to gain new knowledge, learn academic and study skills, and develop your confidence levels so you'll have what it takes to transform your life.

Inaugural Lectures
Farhaneen Mazlan delivering a talk at UCL

Event series

Inaugural Lectures

An opportunity to explore ground-breaking research that is shaping the future and transforming the world.

Disruptive Thinkers Video Series
Dr Claire Walsh looking at a human organ in an imaging facility

Watch Now

Disruptive Thinkers Video Series

From making cities more inclusive to using fibre optics in innovative medical procedures, explore the disruptive thinking taking place across UCL Engineering.

UCL footer

Visit

  • Bloomsbury Theatre and Studio
  • Library, Museums and Collections
  • UCL Maps
  • UCL Shop
  • Contact UCL

Students

  • Accommodation
  • Current Students
  • Moodle
  • Students' Union

Staff

  • Inside UCL
  • Staff Intranet
  • Work at UCL
  • Human Resources

UCL social media menu

  • Link to Soundcloud
  • Link to Flickr
  • Link to TikTok
  • Link to Youtube
  • Link to Instagram
  • Link to Facebook
  • Link to Twitter

University College London, Gower Street, London, WC1E 6BT

Tel: +44 (0) 20 7679 2000

© 2025 UCL

Essential

  • Disclaimer
  • Freedom of Information
  • Accessibility
  • Cookies
  • Privacy
  • Slavery statement
  • Log in