Are suppressed documents in an Active Learning project considered exact duplicates?

Outline in a Nutshell

• Set the scene: suppression and duplication aren’t the same thing in Active Learning.

• Define exact duplicates vs. suppressed documents.

• Explain how suppression fits into Relativity workflows without equating to content identity.

• Walk through practical implications for a project manager and reviewer.

• Close with quick takeaways and a dash of real-world intuition.

Are suppressed documents in an Active Learning project exact duplicates? Short answer: no. Let’s unpack what that means in a way that sticks, because this matters when you’re steering a review, assigning tasks, and keeping the team moving forward.

What counts as an exact duplicate anyway?

If you’ve spent time in document review, you’ve probably run into duplicates. An exact duplicate is a document that is identical in content and formatting. Think two copies of the same email, or the same PDF, kept in separate folders but with the exact same characters, layout, and metadata. In many systems, duplicates are flagged and collapsed so a reviewer doesn’t re-read the same trigging bit of information twice. It’s efficient and reduces cognitive load.

In the Relativity world, deduplication often happens at the file level. If two items are byte-for-byte identical, they’re typically treated as one practical item in the review stream. That’s the clean, content-based definition of an exact duplicate. It’s a technical predicate: is the content identical? Are the formatting markers the same? Do we see the same word-for-word sequence? If yes, you’ve got an exact duplicate.

What are suppressed documents, then?

Suppressed documents are different beasts. They’re items that reviewers or the workflow place “to the side” for a variety of reasons. It could be irrelevance to the case, privilege attachments, confidentiality holds, or other criteria that stop a document from advancing in the review stream. Suppression is a decision about usefulness or sensitivity, not a judgment about content identity per se.

To picture it, imagine you’re sorting a large mailbox for a complex case. You flag some messages as irrelevant because they don’t address the issue at hand. You also flag a handful that you can’t disclose due to attorney-client privilege. Those flagged items aren’t erased; they’re simply not part of the active review slate. They exist in the project, but they aren’t part of the everyday decision workflow.

Important nuance: suppression isn’t a verdict on content identity

Here’s the key distinction that trips people up if you only focus on what you’re seeing on the screen: a suppressed document can be, content-wise, identical to another document that isn’t suppressed. Or it can be different. Suppression is about whether a document should be reviewed, shared, or produced under the current constraints. It doesn’t automatically label the document as a duplicate. And that’s why the answer to the question—are suppressed documents exact duplicates?—is false.

A concrete example helps

• Example A: An email is a straight match to another message in the set. The content is the same, the formatting mirrors each other. If one copy is deemed relevant and the other isn’t, the second item might be suppressed for workflow reasons. Even though the two are exact duplicates content-wise, suppressing one doesn’t turn it into a non-duplicate. They remain exact duplicates in content; suppression is a separate workflow tag.

• Example B: Two documents share the same core content but have different metadata or redactions. In that case, they’re not exact duplicates because the content or presentation differs. Suppression may apply to both, or to one, depending on why they’re treated as sensitive or irrelevant. Here, the act of suppression doesn’t change the fact that they aren’t exact duplicates to begin with.

Active Learning and the suppression layer

Active Learning in Relativity isn’t just a fancy label for a model. It’s a practical workflow that learns from how reviewers classify documents as responsive, non-responsive, privileged, or irrelevant. The model highlights the most informative documents to review next, helping teams focus their attention where it matters most.

Suppressed documents enter the conversation in a few sensible ways:

• They’re filtered out of the live review stream because they’re irrelevant or privileged.

• They might still exist in the workspace for later reference, if the case parameters shift.

• They can be suppressed due to deduplication decisions that reflect workflow choices, not content identity.

In short, suppression is a control mechanism for what gets actively reviewed. It’s not a rule about whether two items are the same at the content level. That separation is crucial for project managers who balance speed with accuracy.

Why this distinction matters in practice

• Efficiency without ambiguity: If suppression were treated as duplicates, you’d risk hiding important nuances. The reviewer might assume that two suppressed items are the same thing, which could lead to gaps in the review coverage. Keeping suppression and exact-duplicate status separate preserves clear decision logic.

• Clear training signals for Active Learning: The model learns from how reviewers label documents. Clear labels—responsive, irrelevant, privilege, suppressed—help the system pick the most informative next items to present. Merging suppression into a duplicate category would muddy those signals.

• Better risk management: Suppression decisions are often tied to legal constraints. Treating suppression as duplicate could blur accountability. You want an auditable trail showing why a document was suppressed, not just that it looked like something else.

How suppression interacts with deduplication on the ground

• Deduplication vs. suppression are two distinct features that can coexist. Deduplication focuses on content identity across the dataset. Suppression focuses on the review workflow and legal constraints.

• You can have exact duplicates where one instance is suppressed and the other isn’t. You can also have non-duplicates that are both suppressed for other reasons. Either way, suppression doesn’t redefine what makes two documents exact duplicates.

• Review teams often rely on both controls. Deduplication reduces redundancy, while suppression ensures sensitive or irrelevant content doesn’t clog the review queue.

Takeaway practical tips for project teams

• Keep definitions explicit: Make sure the team agrees that suppression is a workflow status, not a content identity judgment. This reduces confusion during daily tasks.

• Annotate reasons for suppression: A short note on why a document was suppressed (irrelevant, privilege, confidentiality, etc.) helps future readers understand decisions, especially if the case parameters change.

• Monitor the overlap with deduplication: If you notice a surge in suppressed items that also have exact duplicates, double-check whether the suppression criteria still apply or if a reclassification is warranted.

• Use Active Learning signals thoughtfully: Let the model guide you toward documents that are likely to reveal new, informative patterns, but don’t conflate suppression status with content identity.

• Plan for change as cases evolve: Suppression rules can shift with new orders or evolving discovery scopes. Ensure your workflow can adapt without destabilizing the review rhythm.

Common scenarios you’ll likely encounter

• Scenario 1: An exact email replica is found in two departments’ folders. One copy is suppressed because it’s privileged. You still have a duplicate in content terms, but one copy won’t reappear in the active review feed. That’s suppression doing its job, not a new duplicate label.

• Scenario 2: Two redacted versions of the same document exist. They’re not exact duplicates because redaction alters content. Suppression may apply to both for different reasons, but the core identity question remains about content, not suppression status.

• Scenario 3: A nearly identical document cancels out in dedup due to a tiny formatting difference. In many systems, that may still count as near-duplicate, not an exact duplicate, and suppression decisions ride alongside that nuance rather than replace it.

A note on tone and flow

You’ll hear the same ideas expressed in many ways in the field. Some people lean into the language of “alignment” or “scalability” when describing workflows. For our purposes here, the practical takeaway is simple: suppression is about what gets reviewed, exact duplicates are about what content is identical. Treat them as separate levers that together shape how smoothly your project runs.

Bringing it together

In Relativity projects that use Active Learning, suppression serves a vital function. It protects sensitive material, keeps the review focused, and respects case-specific boundaries. It does not redefine whether two documents are exact duplicates. That distinction—content identity versus workflow status—matters because it keeps the review honest, efficient, and properly auditable.

If you’re building or managing a project, you’ll thank yourself for keeping this boundary clear. Suppressed documents can be powerful tools in your toolkit; they’re not a shortcut to bypass the truth about duplicates. When you explain this to your team, you’ll notice fewer misinterpretations and a more confident, steady pace through the workload.

Final takeaways, in plain terms

• Exact duplicates = identical content and formatting. Suppressed items aren’t automatically duplicates.

• Suppression is a workflow decision, not a content identity judgment.

• Active Learning benefits from clean separation: deduplication handles content identity; suppression handles relevance and sensitivity.

• Stay explicit about suppression reasons, and use the model’s feedback to guide where to look next.

• Keep the rhythm steady by treating these as distinct tools that together streamline the review process.

If you’re curious about how these concepts play out in real-world projects, talk through a couple of anonymized case examples with your team. You’ll likely find that the simplest rule—“suppression ≠ duplicate”—keeps things clear, reduces friction, and makes space for the substantive insights that actually move the project forward.