Canada Driver's License Number
Detects Canada driver's license number patterns. This pattern is based on a Microsoft Purview built-in sensitive information type. Users already running Purview may prefer to enable the built-in SIT directly, or use this version as a starting point for customisation.
- Type
- regex
- Engine
- universal
- Confidence
- medium
- Confidence justification
- Medium confidence: pattern has structural constraints but corroborative keywords are recommended to reduce false positive rates. Added context gating and exclusion rules improve precision and reduce incidental matches.
- Detection quality
- Partial
- Jurisdictions
- ca
- Regulations
- Law 25 (QC), PIPEDA
- Frameworks
- ISO 27001, ISO 27701
- Data categories
- pii, government-id
- Scope
- narrow
- Risk rating
- 6
- Platform compatibility
- Purview: Compatible, GCP DLP: Compatible, Macie: Compatible, Zscaler: Compatible, Palo Alto: Compatible, Netskope: Compatible
Pattern
\b[A-Z]\d{4}-\d{5}-\d{5}\b|\b\d{7}\bCorroborative evidence keywords
driver, licence, license, driving, DL, ID number, identification, ID card, permit, registration, certificate, field, column, row, entry, record, value, form, register, database (+20 more)
Proximity: 300 characters
Should match
A1234-56789-01234— Ontario-style format with letter prefix and grouped digits1234567— 7-digit numeric provincial formatB9876-54321-09876— Another letter-prefix provincial format
Should not match
123456— Too few digits (6 instead of 7)A1234-5678-01234— Invalid grouping (4 digits instead of 5 in second group)template example placeholder record identifier— Template/sample context should be excluded even when anchor words are present
Known false positives
- Generic numeric sequences matching the driver's license format appearing in unrelated contexts. Mitigation: Require corroborative evidence keywords within the proximity window to confirm driver's license context.