I have an account at UBS. If I download an account statement as a PDF it is password protected and I can’t edit it.
I’ve asked their support and they have obviously no idea: I’ve been told to unlock the PDF document using my computer’s password… 
Anybody here knows what the PDF password is, maybe?
Your birthday: DDMMYYYY ?
It doesn’t work. I’ve also tried my e-banking contract number.
It also depends on how the PDF is secured. In some cases, only the original author of the document can edit it. I assume that this will be the case for bank documents, at least we do it like this at our company for financial statements etc.
I could imagine that would make sense. They don’t want falsified account statements with their logo.
I just need to blacken some entries for a legal dispute that I’m having with an online shop…
How about making a snip of your screen and blacken it manually?
That’s what I did.
Now I’m just intrigued and want to find out how to unlock the PDF. 
I use Apple Preview and I can’t do anything with it, it always asks for the password.
Hi! What kind of account is it? Personal or business? Also from UBS Switzerland AG, or UBS Europe SE or another UBS entity? and from where do you download this statement exactly? From the “Inbox” in the e-banking?
Regular personal account, UBS Switzerland.
I use the web-based e-banking, adjust the filters on the left to set e.g. the time period, then click the PDF icon in the upper right corner.
That is so odd. I guess only UBS can solve this problem. That PDF was encrypted at source.
Strange… What OS do you use, which Web browser and which program to open the PDF?
I have tried on two computers:
macOS 12
Safari
Apple Preview
Windows 10
Edge
Acrobat Pro DC
The outcome is always an encrypted PDF.
PDF Expert on Mac OS did not help? I think you should be able to remove the encryption but then the PDF itself won’t have any “legal power”.
I have not tried PDF Expert.
I think I’ll just leave it at that.
I have printed a PDF with the ‘print to PDF’ function before to remove the protection. Maybe then it’ll be editable?
You can print the pdf to a pdf file and it should work.
You can also use pdftk if you’re not afraid of the command line in Unix.
You can also use gimp to edit the pdf.
But know that when you blacken things, it’s best to also “flatten” or rasterize the file afterwards because in some cases it just adds a black rectangle over the data but doesn’t actually cover it and it can be gotten back.
Or the simplest really is to print it out, blacken with a sharpie, scan again. Or print it out on paper, scan as an image, blacken on the computer, and save as png or jpg.