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Detecting Potential PII and PSI using Shinydocs Pro

Increasingly, organizations of every size and across industries are focused on the rapid identification of Personally-Identifiable Information (PII) as well as Personally-Sensitive Information (PSI).

PII is often defined as any information that can be used to distinguish or trace an individual’s identity, such as name, social security number, date and place of birth, mother‘s maiden name, biometrics, or any other information that may be linked to an individual through medical, educational, financial, or employment records. PSI is often defined as as any personal data that could potentially cause harm, damage, embarrassment, or discrimination to an individual if it is disclosed, accessed, or used without permission.

Shinydocs Pro ships with a library of rules for detecting files which may contain potential PII and PSI. These rules include:

  • Passport Number (USA, Canada, New Zealand)

  • Social Security / Insurance Number (USA, Canada, New Zealand)

  • Credit Card (Visa)

  • Credit Card (Mastercard)

  • Credit Card (AMEX)

  • Postal Code (Canada)

  • IPv4

  • Email Address

  • Vehicle Information Number (ie. VIN)

  • Google API Key

  • Medicare Number (USA)

  • Drivers License (Wisconsin - USA, Ontario - Canada)


Using Shinydocs Pro's Enterprise Search and data visualization capabilities, it is possible to refine your search for PII and PSI by combining elements of your query to best suit your needs. For example, using Shinydocs Enterprise Search or by building a visualization dashboard, it is possible to find documents that have been tagged for a specific type of PII, but which also meet the criteria for other tags or entities, such as name, address, etc.

New rules for PII and PSI are added to the application via a small script that is dropped into the location where you have installed Shinydocs Pro. Once installed, subsequent scans of your data will look for, identify, and tag the files associated with the new rule that has been created. Once tagged, these files can be visualized in the Shinydocs dashboards and/or searched for using the Shinydocs Enterprise Search capability.

The library of out-of-the box rules for PII and PSI grows with every new release of Shinydocs Pro. If you are looking for a type of PII or PSI that is not included in the library at this time, please contact Shinydocs for help. Custom rules can be created quickly to meet your needs and your Shinydocs account executive can help to coordinate a small project to deliver the PII or PSI you would like to identify.

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