text-anonymize-legal-de/MODULE.md

text.anonymize.legal-de

NER-based anonymization of German legal texts (JuraNER). Bridge module: the transformers model runs in the judge-ner host service (fai_judge/host_services/judge-ner/); this WASM module forwards the document over loopback HTTP and maps the response onto the capability contract.

Capability

• text.anonymize.legal-de@0.1.0

Inputs

Name	Type	Description
request	json	{"mode":"text"|"docx","options":{...}} — see below.
document	bytes	UTF-8 plain text (mode=text) or a DOCX file (mode=docx).
endpoint	text	Optional judge-ner base URL. Default http://127.0.0.1:8756.

request.options (all optional)

Key	Default	Meaning
importance_levels	["High"]	Entity classes to anonymize (High/Mid/Low).
confidence_threshold	0.8	Minimum NER confidence (0.0–1.0).
manual_phrases	[]	Additional phrases to redact (label RED).
maintain_consistency	true	Same surface form gets the same ⟦TYPE#⟧ token everywhere.
remove_rubrum	false	Detect the rubrum block and replace it with a placeholder.

Outputs

Name	Type	Description
result	json	{"replacements": [...], "text": "..."} — text (the anonymized text) only for mode=text. statistics and rubrum are passed through from the service when present.
document	bytes	The anonymized document: UTF-8 text (text/plain) for mode=text, the rewritten DOCX for mode=docx.

Each replacements entry: {text, label, label_description, start, end, score, line_number, anonymized}; DOCX mode additionally carries run_id_start, char_in_start, run_id_end, char_in_end addressing the exact w:t nodes of the original document. Entries with "anonymized": null were detected but not replaced (importance level not selected).

Permissions & required services

permissions:
  - "net: localhost"
  - "net: 127.0.0.1"
requires_services:
  - judge-ner

The hub refuses to dispatch a step to this module unless the operator declared a judge-ner service endpoint in ~/.chain/config.yaml (services:). Note the first judge-ner start downloads the JuraNER model from HuggingFace — until then the service answers 503 and this module fails with a clear "NER model not available" error.

Setting up the judge-ner host service

The NER model (JuraNER by Harshil Darji, MIT — transformers + torch) cannot run inside the WASM sandbox; it runs as a host service.

# 1. Start the service (Docker; ~1 GB model download on first start,
#    persisted in the named volume — later starts are offline-capable)
docker run -d --name judge-ner \
  -p 8756:8756 \
  -v judge-ner-models:/models \
  judge-ner

# 2. Register it with the hub (~/.chain/config.yaml)
#    services:
#      judge-ner:
#        endpoint: http://127.0.0.1:8756
#        health_check:
#          url: http://127.0.0.1:8756/health

# 3. Verify
curl -s localhost:8756/health     # {"status":"ok","model_loaded":true}
chain service status judge-ner

Source and image build: fai_judge/host_services/judge-ner/ (docker build -t judge-ner .).

Errors

• Malformed request, non-UTF-8 text document, or a 4xx from the service → invalid input: ...
• Service unreachable, 5xx, malformed service response → internal error: judge-ner at <url> ...

License, maintainers & disclaimer

License. This module is Apache-2.0. The underlying NER method and model are the JuraNonymizer library and the JuraNER model, both MIT-licensed:

• Model: https://huggingface.co/harshildarji/JuraNER (MIT)
• Project: JUDGE-KI at the HTW Berlin KI-Werkstatt — https://kiwerkstatt.f2.htw-berlin.de/projekte/judge-ki

Maintainers.

• Harshil Jagadishbhai Darji (HTW Berlin) — NER model and anonymization method (JuraNonymizer / JuraNER)
• Dr. Stefan Alexander Flemming (Flemming.AI) — this bridge module and the judge-ner host service

Disclaimer. Automatic anonymization is a statistical process and gives no guarantee of completeness: entities can be missed, detected only partially, or mislabeled. Before an anonymized document is published or passed on, it must be reviewed by a human. The operator remains responsible for compliance with data-protection law (GDPR); the authors and maintainers accept no liability for incomplete anonymization.

Build

cargo test
cargo build --release --target wasm32-wasip2