Show HN: HideMyData – macOS PII Removal with Local AI and OCR (github.com)

HideMyData has been introduced as a new macOS application that allows users to locally remove personally identifiable information (PII) from documents using AI and optical character recognition (OCR). The application runs entirely on-device, ensuring user privacy by keeping all data secure without any external data transfer. It supports both PDF and image formats with a robust detection and redaction pipeline, utilizing Apple Vision for OCR capabilities to handle scanned documents effectively. This tool is significant for the AI/ML community as it harnesses OpenAI's privacy-filter to identify sensitive information like names and IDs, while complementing this with manually maintained regular expressions for various personal identifiers. Users can choose between two redaction styles—solid black or frosted glass blur—and have the flexibility to edit redaction areas manually before saving, ensuring thoroughness and control over the process. Notably, once saved, the original content is completely removed, contributing to higher data security. Designed for macOS versions 26 and later, HideMyData is optimized for Apple Silicon and developed using Swift and SwiftUI, showcasing advancements in local AI applications and raising the bar for privacy-conscious software solutions.