A payslip carries the employee's name, address, tax and social security identifiers and often a bank account, while most recipients need only the period and the amounts. Before a payslip goes to an adviser, an auditor, a bank or an AI chat, decide what the recipient needs, mask the rest and check the file.
What a payslip contains
Every payslip holds personal data because the law asks for it. In Germany, section 108(1) of the Trade Regulation Act (GewO) requires a written statement of the pay period and of the composition of the pay. The Pay Certificate Regulation (EBV), made under section 108(3), lists for the pay certificate the employee's name, address and date of birth, the insurance number, the start of employment, the tax class and child allowances, the church tax feature and the tax identification number. The same regulation lets the employee black out the church tax feature on the certificate.
The CNIL guide for recruiters adds a second view of the same document. It says a payslip contains many details that are irrelevant to the person reading it: the amount of the salary, days not worked because of sick leave, a personal event or a strike, and bank details. Article 9(1) of the GDPR prohibits in principle the processing of data revealing trade union membership, religious belief or health, so a deduction line or an absence line can carry more than it seems.
A table of fields and the usual decision
The table lists the fields a payslip commonly shows and the decision most recipients allow. It is a starting point, and the recipient and the purpose make the final call.
| Field | Usual decision | Reason |
|---|---|---|
| Name, address, date of birth | Mask | Direct identifiers of the employee |
| Tax code, tax ID, social insurance number, employee number | Mask | Identification numbers that single out one person |
| IBAN and bank name | Mask | Not needed to read the amounts |
| Church tax feature, union dues, absence days | Mask, unless the recipient needs them | Can reveal religion, union membership or health |
| Gross pay, net pay, deductions by type | Keep | What an adviser or an auditor reads |
| Pay period, employer, job title | Keep, or decide per recipient | They show what the document is, and they can identify a person to someone who knows the workplace |
How to redact a payslip step by step
- Work on a copy and keep the original untouched.
- Write down who receives the file and what they need to read from it. An adviser who checks a deduction needs the amounts, and a reader who checks the period needs the dates.
- Mask the identifiers of the table: name, address, date of birth, tax and insurance numbers, employee number and IBAN. An identifier can appear in the header, the body and the footer of a page, and again on every page of a multi-page payslip.
- Read the deduction and absence lines for the details that reveal religion, union membership, health or strike days, and mask the ones the recipient does not need.
- Keep the amounts and the structure of the page, so the recipient can still follow the calculation.
- Remove the author and company from the file properties, and give the file a neutral name without the employee's surname.
- Check the file you will send. Search for the surname, select all and paste into a plain text editor, and look at each page.
The GDPR asks that personal data be limited to what is necessary for the purpose (Article 5(1)(c)): the recipient's purpose decides which fields stay.
What goes wrong when a payslip is redacted
The usual mistake is a black rectangle drawn over the text. The National Security Agency report on safe redaction says that covering text with black rectangles works for printed pages and is not effective, in general, for computer documents distributed over networks, and names covering text with black as the most common mistake. The National Archives of the United Kingdom gives a case: in the judgment Bromcom Computers Plc v United Learning Trust [2022] EWHC 3262 (TCC), black boxes stand for redacted text and a reader can still select what is underneath, although the text underneath was only x characters. Its guidance asks courts not to use boxes, because they do not prevent the text from being accessed.
A payslip created by payroll software is usually a PDF with a text layer, so a box added in a viewer or a drawing tool leaves every character in the file. The check in step 7 exists for this case: if the surname turns up in a search, the box hides the text from the eye and the file still holds it.
A second mistake is a repeated identifier. A name covered in the header can still appear in a footer, a watermark or the second page, and an IBAN can appear next to the net pay as well as in the payment block. Read the whole document once for each identifier.
How Redactic redacts a payslip
Upload the payslip as a PDF, a scan, a photo or a Word file, or a ZIP of up to 200 payslips, and Redactic replaces the names, addresses, dates of birth next to a birth label, phone numbers, email addresses and ID numbers it detects with placeholders. It confirms Italian tax codes, French NIR numbers, German social insurance numbers, Spanish DNI and NIE numbers and IBANs by their check characters, and an employee number is masked with one click or added to your list. For an Excel or CSV payroll export, you mask whole columns and keep the gross and net pay columns as they are. Open Review and edit to check every item on the page. The payroll and accounting page walks through a sample payroll summary, the free trial takes your own document, and files are never stored and never used to train AI models. For the same file going into an AI chat, mask first and upload the masked version, so the model receives placeholders for the name and the IBAN. Related guides: anonymising payslips for payroll bureaus and redaction for accountants under the GDPR.
Frequently asked questions
Which fields can stay on a payslip that goes to an adviser?
The pay period, the employer and the amounts are what most advisers read, and the table above marks them as fields to keep. The identifiers of the employee (name, address, date of birth, insurance and tax numbers, bank account) are the fields to mask, and you decide per recipient. The payroll and accounting page shows the same split on a sample payroll summary.
Is a payslip with the name covered still personal data?
It can be. The GDPR counts information as personal data when the person can be identified directly or indirectly, and a job title, an employer, a period and exact amounts can point to one person for anyone who knows the workplace. Treat the masked file as personal data and send it only to the recipient who needs it.
May a future employer ask for my payslips?
The CNIL guide for recruiters says that asking candidates for payslips is disproportionate, because a payslip holds far more than a recruiter needs. A candidate may send one on their own initiative to show the level of pay, and the guide then says the recruiter should ask the candidate to mask the irrelevant information. This is the French position; check the rule of your own country.
How do I check that the redaction worked?
Open the file you will send and leave the original closed. Search it for the surname and the first digits of the IBAN, press select-all and paste into a plain text editor to see what text is still there, and look at every page and footer. If the name still turns up, the black box was drawn over the text and the text is still in the file.
Sources
- Regulation (EU) 2016/679 (GDPR), Articles 4(1), 5(1)(c) and 9(1), accessed 2026-11-09.
- Gewerbeordnung (GewO), § 108, Abrechnung des Arbeitsentgelts (in German), accessed 2026-11-09.
- Entgeltbescheinigungsverordnung (EBV), § 1 and § 2, Pay Certificate Regulation (in German), accessed 2026-11-09.
- CNIL, Guide Recrutement, 30 January 2023, sheet 5 (in French), accessed 2026-11-09.
- National Security Agency, Redacting with Confidence, report I333-015R-2005, 13 December 2005, accessed 2026-11-09.
- The National Archives, Redactions, guidance for the Find Case Law service, accessed 2026-11-09.