Previous legal names and aliases

Identifies personal records that link a person to previous legal names or aliases (former, maiden, birth or assumed names, deed-poll name changes, also-known-as entries) with populated identity fields.

Type: regex
Engine: boost_regex
Confidence: medium
Confidence justification: Medium: alias phrases are common in forms, guidance and news, so enforcement requires populated identity fields; 85 adds identity-registry evidence.
Detection quality: Topic false positive
Jurisdictions: global
Regulations: Privacy Act 1988 (Cth), GDPR
Frameworks: ISO 27701
Data categories: government-id, pii
Scope: wide
Risk rating: 8
Platform compatibility: Purview: Compatible, GCP DLP: Compatible, Macie: Compatible, Zscaler: Compatible, Palo Alto: Degraded, Netskope: Unsupported

Pattern

(?is)\b(?:previous\s+legal\s+names|former\s+name|maiden\s+name|also\s+known\s+as|name\s+change|deed\s+poll|prior\s+surname|previous\s+surname|birth\s+name|assumed\s+name)\b

Corroborative evidence keywords

previous legal names and aliases, previous, legal, names, aliases, personal, identity, demographics, address, age, birthday, citizenship, city, date of birth, [object Object], email, ethnicity, fax, first name, full name (+67 more)

Proximity: 300 characters

Should match

Change of name registration Applicant name: Avery Teston Date of birth: 04/02/1991 Former name: Avery Mayfield Registration number: CN2026004471 Change of name certificate issued by the Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages on 12/08/2026. — 85 - populated name-change record with registry evidence
Customer identity update Customer number: C4471820 Former name: Riley Mayfield The customer asked for the account to show the current surname. — 75 - populated former-name field and customer number, no registry evidence
Change of name record. Previous legal names and aliases held by the applicant: maiden name and former name as registered by deed poll. — 75 - record statement with a populated applicant field (alias types listed), no registry evidence
Applicant advised a maiden name by phone; the details will follow in writing. — 65 discovery - alias mention without populated fields

Should not match

unrelated generic text without domain phrases — No relevant topic phrases present
If you have a former name or maiden name, list it on the form so we can match your records. — Form guidance - no populated identity fields (65 at most)
Previous legal names and aliases Former name: ________ Maiden name: [if applicable] Date of birth: __/__/____ — Blank form section - placeholder fields are rejected
The actor, also known as Riley Mayfield, announced a name change by deed poll last week. — News item - no populated identity fields
Sample: Previous legal names and aliases, maiden name and former name — Template fixture rejected by the shared exclusion dictionary

Known false positives

Common words and phrases related to previous legal names and aliases appearing in policy documents, training materials, HR templates, or compliance guidelines without actual personal data. Mitigation: Require corroborative evidence keywords within the proximity window to confirm sensitive data context rather than general discussion.
In English (as the primary international business language), similar terminology used in formal or administrative contexts (education, professional documentation) that does not constitute sensitive data collection. Mitigation: Layer with additional contextual signals such as structured identifiers, form fields, or database column headers to distinguish sensitive records from general references.
High-frequency pattern matches in large document corpora due to broad regex anchors. Expected match rate is significantly higher than specific identifier patterns. Mitigation: Tune confidence thresholds for bulk scanning. Consider using this pattern primarily as a pre-filter with secondary validation.