AI governance and data security, defined plainly.
The vocabulary that turns up in an AI governance review, in alphabetical order, without marketing definitions. Where RedactWall does something specific with a term, one sentence says what.
Terms
Glossary of AI governance and data-security terms
AI compliance
Showing an auditor, an examiner or a board that AI use followed the policy you set. It rests on a record of what was decided, not on assurances about what was intended.
AI governance
Deciding which AI tools an organization allows, what data may reach them, and being able to show how both were enforced. RedactWall enforces the approved policy on the paths it governs, and records what was decided there.
check digit
A digit computed from the rest of an identifier so a mistyped value fails arithmetic instead of passing silently. RedactWall applies the issuer’s own check digit wherever one is published.
content-free evidence
An audit record that stores decision metadata rather than the sensitive content behind a decision. In RedactWall, this is distinct from the separately controlled employee activity store, which can retain encrypted content under its retention policy.
data lineage
Following a piece of data as it is copied, renamed or moved, so a later disclosure can be traced back to an earlier one. In design at RedactWall.
detector
A rule that recognises one class of sensitive value in text. RedactWall recognises 106 kinds of sensitive data, including MEMBER_ID, LOAN_NUMBER and ROUTING_NUMBER.
DLP
Data loss prevention: finding sensitive data and stopping it crossing a boundary you control. Classical DLP was designed around email and file shares, so AI traffic has to be covered separately.
egress
Any path by which data leaves a boundary you control: an API call, a message, an upload, a clipboard. Naming the egress is what makes a control testable.
exact-data matching
Detection that matches against one organization’s own records rather than a general pattern. RedactWall matches against a copy of your records that cannot be read back into the original data.
examination package
A bundle of evidence assembled for a stated reporting period and handed to a reviewer. RedactWall’s is sealed to the period it names and checks out on its own, with no system of ours involved.
fail-closed
When a control cannot do its job, it denies rather than allows. If RedactWall cannot record a decision, it refuses the request rather than letting it through unrecorded.
inline enforcement
A control that sits on a configured path and decides traffic before forwarding. RedactWall applies inline enforcement to compatible applications explicitly routed through its AI gateway and to mail submitted through its configured outbound-mail path.
least privilege
Every identity holds exactly the authority it needs and nothing more. RedactWall enforces this on itself and refuses to serve if any part of the system holds more authority than it should.
MCP
Model Context Protocol: a standard interface by which an AI client connects to servers that expose tools and data to a model. It turns ad-hoc integrations into a surface you can enumerate and govern.
model response inspection
Deciding on what a model returns, not only on what was sent to it. RedactWall checks responses returning through its configured AI gateway before forwarding them, and checks tool results returning through its MCP guard before the model receives them. Other routes stay outside those controls.
post-hoc detection
Finding sensitive data after it has come to rest, by looking at what is already stored there rather than sitting on the path data travels: it reports rather than blocks. RedactWall’s cloud drive scanning finds and reports.
prompt injection
Instructions hidden in content a model reads, such as a web page, a document or a tool result, that arrive as data and get acted on as commands. A control that looks only at what a person typed sees none of it.
redaction
Removing or masking sensitive values from content while leaving the rest usable. What happens to each kind of finding is set by your policy, which a risk owner approves before it activates.
retrieval-augmented generation
Usually shortened to RAG: an application feeds a model documents so its answer can draw on them. It moves an organization’s own files onto the AI path.
shadow AI
AI tools staff adopt without approval, procurement or a security review. It is an inventory problem before it is a policy one, because a tool nobody has listed cannot be governed.
tamper-evident record
A record built so that altering an earlier entry can be detected later, rather than merely discouraged. A correction is a new entry, not a rewrite of an old one.
tool call
A model’s request that an application run a named function and return the result into its context. The RedactWall guard approves a call routed through it before the upstream server runs and checks the result before the model reads it. A call made through another route stays outside the guard.
Where these terms show up
Coverage gives every surface one level: decides before data leaves, finds and reports, or on the device.
Verify it yourself is where tamper-evident record stops being vocabulary and becomes something your team runs.
Disclosures states what the evidence supports.
Before you share contact details
Email to support@redactwall.com sends your address, message and any attachments to Microsoft 365 for support and pilot inquiries. Only the owner, Eric, has access to that mailbox: its access list was verified on 2026-09-25, with no delegates, send-as grants or forwarding.
Contact records follow a retention schedule adopted on 2026-09-25, not yet reviewed by counsel. Support and pilot-inquiry email is deleted 24 months after receipt, enforced by an Exchange Online retention policy applied on 2026-09-25; the oldest message was received on 2026-08-24, so none reaches that age before 2028-08. A deleted message is then purged after Exchange's recoverable-items window. Auth0 keeps its own authentication logs for 1 to 30 days by plan; the plan on this tenant was not read back. Our streamed copy of those logs is deleted after 365 days by an enforced retention setting. Auth0 identities with no workspace and no sign-in for 24 months are removed at a quarterly review. Pilot request, requester, contact and approval records in the platform database have no deletion today: the database refuses to delete them because they anchor the identity audit chain, so they are kept for the life of the service. A backup set expires about 9 weeks after it is superseded, but new backups keep capturing the retained database records. Requests about your own data are answered within 30 days. The employee activity and training retention periods do not cover these records.
For an initial email, share only a brief, non-sensitive description. Keep organization and workflow details, customer records, credentials, prompt contents and attachments out of the initial message.
Read the contact-data noticeIf a term you need is missing, tell us so we can review the request.
Start a supervised pilot.
Work with RedactWall to confirm fit, agree the scope and verify one managed device before expanding.
- Plain definitions tied to product behavior
- Coverage described surface by surface
- Current proof status listed in Disclosures