Announcing custom redaction suggestions using regular expressions (RegEx)

Announced on | Rollout starts | Rollout ends
August 4, 2026 | August 4, 2026 | August 5, 2026

We're excited to announce custom redaction suggestions, a new feature that allows organizations to automatically identify unique types of personally identifiable information (PII) in tickets using custom regular expressions (RegEx).

This feature is available exclusively for customers who have purchased the Advanced Data Privacy and Protection (ADPP) add-on.

This announcement includes the following sections:

What's changing?

Why is Zendesk making this change?

What do I need to do?

What's changing?

Currently, Zendesk offers built-in redaction for standard PII categories. However, many companies handle unique or domain-specific sensitive data—such as Wallet IDs, Medical Record Numbers (MRN), and employee IDs—that are not covered by predefined categories.

With custom redaction suggestions, admins can define custom regular expressions to automatically identify their organization's unique PII patterns across ticket content. The sensitive data matching the RegEx pattern is highlighted for redaction so agents can review and redact it in the Zendesk Agent Workspace.

If you have ticket triggers in place that automatically redact PII, you can also include custom redaction suggestions in your trigger conditions.

Why is Zendesk making this change?

Without an automated solution for custom data patterns, teams have had to manually identify custom PII in tickets. Manual PII identification is time-consuming, prone to human error, and increases the risk of non-compliance with global privacy regulations such as GDPR.

By introducing RegEx-based redaction suggestions, Zendesk helps you:

Protect unique sensitive data that is not covered by built-in PII categories.

Reduce manual effort by automatically identifying values agents would otherwise need to find themselves.

Improve consistency by applying the same detection logic across tickets.

Support compliance goals by lowering the risk of missed redactions and accidental exposure.

What do I need to do?

No automatic changes will occur on launch day. Nothing will change for your account or ticket workflows until an admin configures a new RegEx-based detection pattern.

To start using this feature:

Confirm your account includes the Advanced Data Privacy and Protection (ADPP) add-on.

Navigate to Admin Center to create and enable your custom redaction suggestions.

For more details on creating custom redaction suggestions, see Turning on and configuring redaction suggestions.

If you have feedback or questions related to this announcement, visit our community forum where we collect and manage customer product feedback. For general assistance with your Zendesk products, contact Zendesk Customer Support.