EU Driver's License Number

Detects EU driver's license number patterns across all EU member states. 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: broad pattern covering multiple EU member state formats. Corroborative keywords are essential for reliable detection due to the wide range of formats matched. Added context gating and exclusion rules improve precision and reduce incidental matches.
Detection quality: Mixed
Jurisdictions: eu
Regulations: GDPR
Frameworks: ISO 27001, ISO 27701
Data categories: pii, government-id
Scope: wide
Risk rating: 5
Platform compatibility: Purview: Compatible, GCP DLP: Compatible, Macie: Compatible, Zscaler: Compatible, Palo Alto: Compatible, Netskope: Compatible

Pattern

\b[A-Z0-9]{5,20}\b

Corroborative 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

AB123456 — Common EU format with letter prefix and digits
A1B2C3D4E5 — Mixed alphanumeric EU driver's license format
XY98765432 — Longer alphanumeric format used by some EU states

Should not match

ABCD — Too few characters (4 instead of minimum 5)
A1B2C3D4E5F6G7H8I9J0K — Too many characters (21 instead of maximum 20)
demo mock test data id flag — Template/sample context negative — this pattern has no numeric structural component (broad 5-20 char alnum shape), so unlike the numeric identifier patterns the fix is word-length rather than digit-count: every token is under the 5-character minimum (demo/mock/test/data are 4 chars, id/flag are 2-4), so the universal-engine top-level regex correctly does not match anywhere in the value, while the tokens are still drawn from the template-exclusion dictionary (demo, mock) to preserve the template/placeholder framing for the Purview-tier NOT-group this test case also exercises

Known false positives

Generic alphanumeric sequences matching the broad EU driver's license format appearing in unrelated contexts such as product codes, serial numbers, or reference identifiers. Mitigation: Require corroborative evidence keywords within the proximity window to confirm driver's license context.

References

EU driver's license number entity definition - Microsoft Learn