Legal · Philterd

Bankruptcy Rule 9037 (FRBP 9037) Court Filing Redaction

Redact bankruptcy court filings per FRBP 9037 — last 4 of SSN/TIN/account, year-only of birthdates, minors' names to initials.

View policy → Download JSON → View source on GitHub

v1.0.0 Updated 2026-05-18 Philter >=3.0.0 By Philterd

FRBP 9037bankruptcycourt filingsprivacyPII

The policy

The full rule-9037-bankruptcy.json file — the same content you’d get by downloading. Copy any part of it, or use the buttons in the hero to grab the whole file.

{
  "name": "rule-9037-bankruptcy",
  "config": {
    "splitting": {
      "enabled": false,
      "threshold": 4000
    }
  },
  "ignored": [],
  "identifiers": {
    "ssn": {
      "ssnFilterStrategies": [
        {"strategy": "MASK", "maskCharacter": "x", "maskLength": "SAME", "leaveCharacters": 4}
      ]
    },
    "date": {
      "onlyValidDates": true,
      "dateFilterStrategies": [
        {"strategy": "TRUNCATE", "truncateDigits": 4, "redactionFormat": "%Y", "conditions": "context == \"birth\""}
      ]
    },
    "personsName": {
      "personsFilterStrategies": [
        {"strategy": "ABBREVIATE", "abbreviateFormat": "INITIALS", "conditions": "context == \"minor\""}
      ]
    },
    "identifiers": [
      {
        "id": "tin",
        "pattern": "\\b\\d{2}[-\\s]?\\d{7}\\b",
        "identifierFilterStrategies": [
          {"strategy": "MASK", "maskCharacter": "x", "maskLength": "SAME", "leaveCharacters": 4}
        ]
      },
      {
        "id": "financial-account",
        "pattern": "\\b(?:ACCT|ACCOUNT)[\\s:#]*\\d{6,}\\b",
        "caseSensitive": false,
        "identifierFilterStrategies": [
          {"strategy": "MASK", "maskCharacter": "x", "maskLength": "SAME", "leaveCharacters": 4}
        ]
      }
    ]
  }
}

Example

Input

Debtor Jane Doe (SSN 123-45-6789, born 1985-04-12) for account 1234567890. Minor child: Charles Doe.

Output

Debtor Jane Doe (SSN xxxxxxx6789, born 1985) for account xxxxxx7890. Minor child: C.D.

Entities this policy acts on

SSNTINACCOUNTBIRTHDATEMINOR_NAME

What this policy does

Implements the privacy-protection requirements of Federal Rule of Bankruptcy Procedure 9037, which mirrors Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 5.2 for the bankruptcy courts. The rule requires that filings include only:

Original PII	Permitted in filing
Social Security number	last 4 digits
Taxpayer identification number	last 4 digits
Date of birth	year only
Name of a minor	initials only
Financial account number	last 4 digits

This policy enforces those rules automatically:

SSNs and TINs — masked to last 4 (e.g., xxxxxxx6789).
Financial account numbers — masked to last 4. The regex matches ACCT 1234567890, Account: 1234567890, etc.
Birthdates — truncated to the 4-digit year. The context == "birth" condition only triggers on dates associated with a birth (DOB, “born”, etc.) — other dates in the filing (hearings, transaction dates) pass through.
Minors’ names — replaced with initials. The context == "minor" condition relies on Philter detecting minor-related context (e.g., “minor child”, “the minor”, “juvenile”). For high-precision deployments, also configure a custom dictionary of known minor names.

When to use this

Bankruptcy schedules (Schedule A/B, Schedule E/F, Statement of Financial Affairs)
Proof of claim forms
Adversary proceeding complaints and answers
Any document filed with the bankruptcy court that originated outside the court system

The same rule (FRBP 9037) applies regardless of which chapter (7, 11, 12, 13) the filing is for.

When to customize

Account number format. The default \bACCT[\s:#]*\d{6,}\b is illustrative. Replace with the specific patterns your case management system uses.
TIN format. The default matches the XX-XXXXXXX EIN format. ITINs follow 9XX-XX-XXXX and are caught by the SSN filter (since they share the SSN format).
Minor detection. If your filings have a structured field for minor names (e.g., a “Minor Children” section), add a custom section filter to redact the entire section content.
Per-rule overrides. FRCP 5.2(d) and FRBP 9037(d) allow filing unredacted documents under seal with court permission. This policy assumes you want full redaction — if you’re preparing a filing for the protected order, use a less aggressive variant or pass through unmodified.

Compliance notes

Federal Rule of Bankruptcy Procedure 9037 has been in effect since December 1, 2007. It applies to all documents filed with the U.S. Bankruptcy Courts.
This policy implements only the privacy-protection redactions required by FRBP 9037(a). It does not handle the additional sealing or restricted-access provisions of FRBP 9037(d) (motion to redact under seal) or 9037(e) (additional protections by court order).
Attorneys remain responsible for the accuracy of their filings. This policy is a tool to reduce manual redaction work, not a substitute for attorney review.

References

Use this policy

Download and load into your running Philter instance:

# Download the policy
curl -O https://raw.githubusercontent.com/philterd/pii-redaction-policies/main/policies/philterd/legal/rule-9037-bankruptcy.json

# Upload to your Philter instance
curl -X POST http://localhost:8080/api/policies \
     -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
     --data @rule-9037-bankruptcy.json

# Redact text using the policy
curl http://localhost:8080/api/filter?p=rule-9037-bankruptcy \
     --data "your text here" \
     -H "Content-Type: text/plain"

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