Installation

Allyanonimiser can be installed using pip with various installation options depending on your needs.

Prerequisites

• Python 3.12 or 3.13 (spaCy does not yet ship cp314 wheels)
• A spaCy language model (recommended)

Basic Installation

Install the core package from PyPI:

pip install allyanonimiser==3.3.0

Installation Options

Allyanonimiser offers several installation options to meet different needs:

With Stream Processing Support

For processing very large files with memory-efficient streaming:

pip install "allyanonimiser[stream]==3.3.0"

With LLM Integration

For advanced pattern generation using language models:

pip install "allyanonimiser[llm]==3.3.0"

Complete Installation

To install all optional dependencies:

pip install "allyanonimiser[stream,llm]==3.3.0"

Installing a spaCy Language Model

Allyanonimiser uses spaCy for NER (PERSON, LOCATION, ORG). Two models are supported; pattern-based detection (TFN, ABN, MEDICARE, AU_PHONE, EMAIL, dates, etc.) is identical with either one.

Default: small model

python -m spacy download en_core_web_sm   # 44 MB, fast

This is what create_allyanonimiser() loads by default in v3.3+. It's the right choice for serverless deployments (Azure Functions, Lambda) and for pipelines where pattern PII (TFN, ABN, etc.) is the primary concern.

Optional: large model (higher NER accuracy)

python -m spacy download en_core_web_lg   # 587 MB, ~1.5 GB resident

Pass it explicitly when you need higher recall on names, places, and organisations:

from allyanonimiser import create_allyanonimiser, SPACY_MODEL_ACCURATE

ally = create_allyanonimiser(spacy_model=SPACY_MODEL_ACCURATE)

Choosing a spaCy model

	SPACY_MODEL_FAST (en_core_web_sm)	SPACY_MODEL_ACCURATE (en_core_web_lg)
Default in v3.3+?	yes	no
Download / disk	44 MB	587 MB
Resident memory	~200 MB	~1.5 GB
Cold start	~0.5s	2 – 5s
Pattern detection	identical	identical
PERSON recall	~80% on insurance text	~92%
LOCATION, ORG recall	noticeably worse	high

Pass spacy_model=None to disable spaCy entirely — pattern detection keeps working.

Development Installation

If you're contributing to the project, install in development mode:

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/srepho/Allyanonimiser.git
cd Allyanonimiser

# Install in development mode
pip install -e .

# Install development dependencies
pip install -e ".[dev]"

Verifying Installation

To verify that Allyanonimiser was installed correctly, run:

import allyanonimiser
print(allyanonimiser.__version__)

This should print the current version of Allyanonimiser (e.g., 3.3.0).