Amber: personal or commercial, but redactable

Amber is anything containing personal data about an identifiable person, or commercially sensitive information, where the AI could still do the job if those details were removed. A client email where the task is "help me reply" and the client's name is irrelevant. A spreadsheet of sales figures where the task is "find the trend" and the customer names can go. A CV where the task is "check this against the job spec" and the candidate's contact details do not matter.

Amber has a rule: redact, then paste. Replace names with roles. Replace figures with rounded or placeholder values if the exact numbers are not needed. Strip contact details, reference numbers, anything that identifies. Then the AI gets the shape of the problem without the risk.

On a business or internal tool, amber can often go in with less redaction, because the contract covers it. But redaction is a good habit regardless, and it costs thirty seconds.

In practice. An HR adviser needed help structuring a difficult letter to an employee. Amber: the letter was about a real person and a real disciplinary matter. She replaced the name with "the employee," removed the dates and the case reference, and described the issue in general terms.

The AI helped her with structure and tone. Nothing about the person left her desk. When she wrote the real letter, she put the specifics back herself.

Before I paste a document, help me redact it. I will describe what is in it and what I need help with: [ describe ]. Tell me which details are needed for you to help and which are not, and give me a redaction checklist for this document type: what to replace names with, whether figures need to be exact, what identifiers to strip. Do not ask me to paste the original.

At your desk. Take one real amber document from your week. Redact it by hand: roles for names, placeholders for identifiers, rounded figures where exact ones are not needed. Time yourself. Then check: could the AI still do what you needed with the redacted version?

Write it down.

• The document I redacted:
• Seconds it took:
• What I replaced names with: