Remove Metadata For Improved Document Security

Document security is an increasing concern as more and more people share their documents via email. The safest way to keep your documents secure is to stop emailing them. But you can’t do that. So the next best thing is to use a software application that will remove metadata from your documents before you share them.

Check The Security Of Your Documents
If you identify a security issue with your documents you may want to look into a document security application. When looking at a document security software solution it’s important to think about the types of metadata that you may or may not want to remove. Different types of document security are needed in different situations: You may want to remove metadata altogether, or include certain types of metadata, when you email a document to an external client versus an internal coworker.

Applications that remove metadata should allow policies to be set that will consistently remove preset metadata from every document sent via email. Some metadata, such as track changes, comments, and footnotes, will occasionally need to be sent along with a document. At other times, you'll want to remove it before sharing. Make sure that any document security solution you are using gives you the flexibility to choose whether or not to have this information removed from the document or not.

For additional document security, you may also want to limit how users can share documents. A complete document security application will provide the ability to restrict whether or not a document can be emailed externally. It should also allow you to convert your Microsoft Word documents into PDF format to lock down the content that you are sending. This will allow someone to view the content, but they will not be able to make any changes to your PDF.

How Do I Increase Document Security in Microsoft Office?
The following top ten best practice tips should be followed to ensure your organization is protected from the risk of document metadata:

• Establish an enterprise-wide metadata policy and determine what document metadata is a security risk to you and why
• Remove all Microsoft Word documents from your web-site
• Utilize an enterprise-wide application to remove metadata
• Ensure your Metadata removal application has the ability to centrally enforce your document security policy
• Ensure that the application you’re using to remove metadata is integrated to your email system for complete document security
• Ensure your Metadata removal application contains functionality to review a report of existing metadata in documents before cleaning or sending to others
• Encourage the use of sending PDF files, which have already been cleaned by a metadata removal application, to external parties where appropriate
• Remove all metadata from your template library to reduce the risk of any metadata being inherited from previously used documents
• Turn ‘Highlight Track Changes’ on before sending documents to others to review if a history of changes exists
• Click View-Comments from your Microsoft Office application before sending documents to others to review if a history of comments exists

How Can I Ensure Important Documents are Secure?
The following steps can ensure that documents that you send or share with others remain secure and confidential:

• Establish an enterprise wide metadata policy and deploy an enterprise-wide application to remove metadata
• Distribute published documents in a metadata-free PDF format
• Encourage PDF security and file encryption by selecting a PDF conversion technology that incorporates these features
• Consider sending documents in zip format with a zip password