PII Identity Scan

Overview

PII Identity Scan is a specialized scan type that associates PII findings with identifiable individuals. Unlike a standard PII scan which simply detects personal data, an Identity Scan links each piece of PII (SSNs, phone numbers, emails, etc.) to the person it belongs to, based on names found nearby in your documents.

Example output:

Fred Smith: employee-list.xls: SSN, Address, Phone
Greg Jones: employee-list.xls: SSN, Address, Phone
Greg Jones: contacts.pdf: Address, Phone
Amy Miller: customer-data.doc: Drivers License, Credit Card, Phone

This is useful for GDPR compliance, data subject access requests, or understanding exactly whose personal information exists in your files.

How It Works

The PII Identity Scan operates in three phases:

Phase 1: Identity Scan

Detects all configured PII types along with full names in your files. The scan stores the position of each finding along with surrounding context (the text around each match).

Phase 2: Association Processing

Groups PII findings with detected names based on proximity rules. For example, if "John Smith" appears on the same line as "123-45-6789", the SSN is associated with John Smith. This step can be run multiple times with different settings without rescanning your files.

Phase 3: Results & Reporting

Browse results grouped by person, mark false positives, and export CSV reports.

Starting a PII Identity Scan

From your scan's overview page, click PII Identity Scan in the Quick Actions section
Configure your scan:

PII Types to Detect

Select which PII types you want to find:

Full Names - Detect and link first + last name combinations
Social Security Numbers - US SSN patterns (XXX-XX-XXXX)
Phone Numbers - US phone number formats
Email Addresses - Email patterns
Addresses - US street addresses and city/state/zip
Credit Cards - Major credit card patterns
Dates of Birth - Common date formats
Driver's Licenses - US driver's license patterns

Context Storage Mode

Choose how the scan stores surrounding text:

Standard (Recommended) - Stores context when a Full Name is found near other PII on the same line. This is efficient for most use cases.
Match All - Stores context for every finding regardless of proximity. Use this if you need maximum flexibility for association, but note it uses more storage.
Click Start Identity Scan

The scan runs in the background and shows real-time progress including:

Current file being processed
Number of findings and names detected
Any errors encountered
Elapsed time

Running Association

After the identity scan completes, you need to run association processing to link PII findings with names.

Go to the Run Association section
Enter a Run Name (e.g., "GDPR Audit January 2025")
Select an Association Method:

Association Methods

Same Line - Associates PII found on the same line as the name. Best for structured data like spreadsheets or CSV files where each row contains one person's data.
Character Distance - Associates PII within a configurable number of characters from the name. Useful for documents where related information spans multiple lines but stays close together. You can set the maximum distance (default: 200 characters).
Same Paragraph - Associates PII found in the same paragraph (separated by blank lines) as the name. Good for documents with clear paragraph separation.
Click Run Association

You can create multiple association runs with different settings. Each run is saved and can be viewed independently. This lets you experiment with different methods without rescanning files.

Viewing Results

By Person View

The main results view shows all detected people with:

Number of files containing their PII
Count of PII items found
Types of PII detected (shown as colored badges)

Click View Details on any person to see their complete PII breakdown.

Person Details

Shows all PII for a specific person, organized by file:

Each file is listed with the number of PII items
Click any finding to see context details in a sidebar
View the surrounding text where the PII was found
See the association method and distance used

Unassociated Findings

The Unassociated count shows PII that couldn't be linked to any name. Click View to see these findings. This happens when:

PII appears in files without detected names
PII is too far from any name (based on your association method)
Context wasn't stored (when using Standard mode and no name was nearby)

Marking False Positives

If the scan incorrectly identified something as PII, you can mark it as a false positive. Click the False Positive dropdown on any finding and choose a scope:

This finding only - Hides just this specific occurrence in this file
All "[text]" - Hides all occurrences of this exact text everywhere in this run
[Name] + [type] - Hides all PII of this type for this person (e.g., all SSNs for "John Smith")

False positives are scoped to the association run—they don't affect other runs.

Exporting Reports

Click Download CSV to export results. The CSV includes:

Full Name
File Name
PII Types found
Ambiguous flag (if multiple names were near the PII)

Reports automatically filter out findings you've marked as false positives.

Tips for Best Results

Use Standard context mode unless you have a specific reason to store all context
Start with Same Line association for spreadsheets and structured data
Use Paragraph association for documents with clear paragraph structure
Create multiple association runs to find the best method for your data
Review unassociated findings to catch PII that needs manual review