# Redact street addresses

> Redact postal addresses from free text and structured payloads, including partial street names the model only half-captures.

Canonical: https://bitbanger.in/entities/address
Last updated: 2026-10-27

Category: Contact details · Entity type: `contact.address`

Addresses are the hardest contact type to bound: a model often tags only the house number or only the street. Redactly extends the span across the whole word so the reported entity is the complete address, not a fragment.

## How Redactly detects street addresses

- Detected by the model, then the span is extended across contiguous word characters to complete partial street names.
- A postal code the model also flags is reported separately as contact.postal_code.
- Offsets are computed on the raw text, so line breaks do not reset character positions.

## Why redact street addresses?

A full address plus a name is enough to physically locate someone, which raises the severity of any leak.

## Example request

```bash
curl -X POST https://api.bitbanger.in/v1/redact \
  -H "X-API-Key: rdct_your_key_here" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"text": "Ship to: 214 Marlborough Road, Bristol BS8 4QA.", "style": "replace"}'
```

## FAQ

**Does Redactly redact street addresses automatically?**

Yes. Send text to the API and every detected type is redacted, including street addresses. To redact only this type, pass the value contact.address in the entities filter. No training or configuration is required.

**What happens to street addresses after redaction?**

With style set to replace, each match becomes [contact.address] — the entity type in square brackets. Setting style to mask replaces every character with a block character, and remove deletes the span entirely.

## Related entity types

- [Postal codes](https://bitbanger.in/entities/postal-code) — Redact ZIP and postcode values in US 5-digit, ZIP+4, and UK formats from text and tabular data.
- [Person names](https://bitbanger.in/entities/person-name) — Redact personal names from free text, including partial names the model only half-captures.
- [GPS coordinates](https://bitbanger.in/entities/gps-coordinates) — Redact latitude and longitude pairs from delivery records, field-service notes, and mobile telemetry.

Try it on your own text: https://bitbanger.in/entities/address