diff --git a/stackalytics/processor/utils.py b/stackalytics/processor/utils.py
index 145af381f..508801adf 100644
--- a/stackalytics/processor/utils.py
+++ b/stackalytics/processor/utils.py
@@ -234,6 +234,10 @@ def safe_encode(s):
     return six.moves.urllib.parse.quote(s.encode('utf-8'))
 
 
+def keep_safe_chars(s):
+    return re.sub(r'[^\x21-\x7e\x80-\xff]+', '', s)
+
+
 def make_module_group(module_group_id, name=None, modules=None, tag='module'):
     return {'id': module_group_id,
             'module_group_name': name or module_group_id,
diff --git a/stackalytics/processor/vcs.py b/stackalytics/processor/vcs.py
index 161d02913..37c25e55e 100644
--- a/stackalytics/processor/vcs.py
+++ b/stackalytics/processor/vcs.py
@@ -211,6 +211,9 @@ class Git(Vcs):
                 # ignore commits with empty email (there are some < Essex)
                 continue
 
+            commit['author_email'] = utils.keep_safe_chars(
+                commit['author_email'])
+
             diff_stat_str = rec.group('diff_stat')
             diff_rec = re.search(DIFF_STAT_PATTERN, diff_stat_str)
 
diff --git a/tests/unit/test_utils.py b/tests/unit/test_utils.py
index 2c71e1e34..a65a29670 100644
--- a/tests/unit/test_utils.py
+++ b/tests/unit/test_utils.py
@@ -78,6 +78,12 @@ class TestUtils(testtools.TestCase):
         self.assertEqual(expected, utils.add_index(
             sequence, start=0, item_filter=lambda x: x['name'] != 'B'))
 
+    def test_keep_safe_chars(self):
+        self.assertEqual('somemoretext',
+                         utils.keep_safe_chars('some more text'))
+        self.assertEqual(u'(unicode)',
+                         utils.keep_safe_chars(u'(unicode \u0423) '))
+
     def test_normalize_company_name(self):
         company_names = ['EMC Corporation', 'Abc, corp..', 'Mirantis IT.',
                          'Red Hat, Inc.', 'abc s.r.o. ABC', '2s.r.o. co',