Redaction engine for electronic documents with multiple types, formats and/or categories

A method comprising:

• receiving redaction rules to be used in redacting electronic documents, where the redaction rules are specified in dependence on document type, where the document type is based at least partially upon at least one piece of information on a hard copy paper document which was scanned to form the electronic documents, and where the document type is one of a plurality of hard copy paper document types based at least partially upon the at least one piece of information on a plurality of hard copy paper documents;
• storing the redaction rules to a non-transitory computer memory, the non-transitory computer memory comprising a source of redaction rules;
• accessing an electronic document to be redacted from a source of electronic documents;
• identifying the electronic document to be redacted by document type of the hard copy paper document scanned to form the electronic document;
• accessing the redaction rules from the source of redaction rules appropriate for use in redacting the document type of the hard copy paper document to which the electronic document corresponds;
• converting a file format of the electronic document into a different redaction common file format;
• and
• redacting the electronic document in the redaction common file format by a redaction engine in accordance with the redaction rules specified for the document type of the hard copy paper document to which the electronic document corresponds, and creating redactions in the electronic document, where the redaction engine is configured to redact a plurality of different document file formats of electronic documents of the hard copy paper documents, and wherein the redacting comprises applying at least one of the redaction rules to automatically exclude information based upon the identified document type.