In Thoughtox, personal information means details that can identify you or make it easy for someone else to contact, track, or impersonate you. The safest version of a thought is usually the one that keeps the meaning and drops the identifying details.
What usually counts as personal information
- Phone numbers and WhatsApp numbers
- Email addresses
- Exact home or work addresses
- Bank, card, account, UPI, OTP, or verification numbers
- Government ID numbers such as Aadhaar, PAN, passport, or licence details
- Any long number string that is clearly tied to your identity or access
What usually does not need redaction
- Simple counts like “1 year”, “3 days”, or “7 out of 10”
- Years, dates, and ordinary numbers when they are not identifying you
- General references like “my friend”, “someone at work”, or “a family member”
What Thoughtox does
Before a thought is stored, Thoughtox tries to detect and remove obvious personal identifiers such as emails, phone numbers, and ID-like strings. If something is removed, the thought is still saved and analyzed, but the identifier itself is replaced before storage.
This is a safety layer, not a promise that every private detail will always be caught. That is why we still ask you not to paste personal identifiers into the writing field in the first place.
How to write safely without losing meaning
- Write “my partner” instead of a full name plus phone number.
- Write “someone from work” instead of an office address.
- Write “I got a message from them” instead of pasting the number or code.
- Keep the emotional truth. Drop the identifying trail.
If you see a redaction notice
It means Thoughtox removed a likely personal identifier before saving the entry. Your thought is still there. The system just stripped out the part that looked too identifying.