Titled Person Reference

Identifies personal names preceded by salutations (Mr, Mrs, Ms, Dr, Prof, etc.) in Australian documents. Uses structural regex for honorific + capitalised name components with corroborative evidence from the consolidated Australian forename and surname dictionaries.

Type

keyword_proximity

Engine

boost_regex

Confidence

medium

Confidence justification

Medium: a titled name alone is common in correspondence and public text, so enforce tiers now need an independent populated contact or identity field next to the name; the registry dictionaries confirm the tokens are plausible names but are not counted as independent evidence.

Jurisdictions

au

Regulations

Privacy Act 1988 (Cth), NDB Scheme (Cth), Information Privacy Act 2009 (Qld)

Frameworks

ISO 27001, ISO 27701

Data categories

pii, personal-name

Scope

wide

Risk rating

5

Pattern

\b(?:Mr|Mrs|Miss|Ms|Dr|Prof|Rev|Hon|Sir|Dame|Lord|Lady)\.?\s+(?:[A-Z][a-z]{1,20}\s+[A-Z][a-z]{1,20}\s+[A-Z][a-z]{1,20}|[A-Z][a-z]{1,20}\s+[A-Z][a-z]{1,20})\b

Should match

• Contact record Ms Sarah Thompson Mobile: 0412 345 678 Email: s.thompson@harbourclinic.com.au Customer number: C4471820 — Titled name with both registry hits and two distinct contact/identity fields (85)
• Dr Aaliyah Zorvane Phone: 07 3000 1234 — Titled name with one registry hit and one contact field (75)
• Attention: Prof. James Wilson — Titled name alone (65 discovery)

Should not match

• The weather forecast predicts rain across the region this weekend. — Generic non-name text with no salutation present
• The mrs clause in the contract — Lowercase clause wording does not satisfy the case-sensitive titled-name structure
• Dr Brown Engineering Pty Ltd lodged the tender. — Titled business-name collision present in both Australian dictionaries must not reach enforcement
• Dr Victoria Road, QLD 4000 — Titled formatted-address collision present in both Australian dictionaries must not reach enforcement
• Sample: Dear Dr Aaliyah Abbasi — High-like titled-name fixture must be rejected by the shared exclusion dictionary
• The Hon. Justice Michael Kirby delivered the lecture on constitutional law at the university. — Public figure named in prose without contact or identity fields (no enforce tier)
• Contact details Name: ____________________ Phone: ____________________ Email: ____________________ Customer number: ____________________ Signature: ____________ Date: __/__/____ — Blank form with unpopulated labelled fields (placeholder guard keeps it below 75)

Known false positives

• Salutations preceding non-name words in informal text or brand references. Mitigation: Require capitalised words following the salutation and corroborative family-name dictionary.

References

• OAIC - What is personal information
• Privacy Act 1988 (Cth)