# Redact religious beliefs

> Redact references to religious belief or affiliation from HR records, applications, and free text.

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

Category: Special-category data · Entity type: `special.religion`

Religious belief is a protected characteristic. In hiring and HR data it is also an easy route to discrimination claims if it leaks alongside an application.

## How Redactly detects religious beliefs

- Detected by the model from free text; there is no reliable pattern.
- Covers affiliation, practice, and belief statements rather than only explicit labels.
- Reported as its own entity type so you can apply a handling policy separately from other categories.

## Why redact religious beliefs?

Protected-characteristic data in an HR export is a discrimination risk as well as a privacy breach.

## 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": "Candidate requests Friday prayer accommodation.", "style": "replace"}'
```

## FAQ

**Does Redactly redact religious beliefs automatically?**

Yes. Send text to the API and every detected type is redacted, including religious beliefs. To redact only this type, pass the value special.religion in the entities filter. No training or configuration is required.

**What happens to religious beliefs after redaction?**

With style set to replace, each match becomes [special.religion] — 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

- [Political opinions](https://bitbanger.in/entities/political) — Redact political opinions and affiliations from free text, surveys, and HR records.
- [Sexual orientation](https://bitbanger.in/entities/orientation) — Redact references to sexual orientation from free text and HR records.
- [Health status](https://bitbanger.in/entities/health-status) — Redact statements about a person's health, disability, or medical status from free text.

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