US Patent 7724918 Data obfuscation of text data using entity detection and replacement

A data obfuscation method, apparatus and computer program product are disclosed in which at least selected text entities such as words or abbreviations in a document are obfuscated to prevent the disclosure of private information if the document is disclosed. A user establishes various configuration parameters for selected text entities desired to obfuscated. The document is processed and text entities matching the configuration parameters are tagged for obfuscation. The tagged entities are then substituted in the document with obfuscating text. The obfuscating text can be derived from a hash table. The hash table may be used to provide a reverse obfuscation method by which original data can be restored to an obfuscated document.