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, data record, database record, record set, data extract, data export, database table, spreadsheet, data registry, registry entry (+14 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.