Institutional review board submissions

Identifies submissions to, and decisions of, a human research ethics review body - IRB/HREC applications, submissions and approvals, ethics applications, protocol amendments and adverse event reports - when the phrase sits with populated protocol/investigator identifiers and submission fields. Committee descriptions alone remain discovery-only.

Type: regex
Engine: boost_regex
Confidence: medium
Confidence justification: Medium: enforce tiers need a populated protocol or investigator field; 85 also needs a submission field and review evidence. Committee web pages, agendas and research-office guidance stay at 65.
Detection quality: Topic false positive
Jurisdictions: global
Regulations: Privacy Act 1988 (Cth), NDB Scheme (Cth), Information Privacy Act 2009 (Qld), GDPR, HIPAA
Frameworks: ISO 27001, ISO 27701
Data categories: pii
Scope: wide
Risk rating: 8
Platform compatibility: Purview: Compatible, GCP DLP: Compatible, Macie: Compatible, Zscaler: Compatible, Palo Alto: Degraded, Netskope: Unsupported

Pattern

(?i)\b(?:institutional\s+review\s+board|IRB\s+(?:submission|application|approval|protocol)|(?:human\s+research\s+)?ethics\s+(?:committee|application|approval|submission)|HREC\s+(?:application|approval|reference)|protocol\s+amendment|(?:serious\s+)?adverse\s+event\s+report|human\s+subjects\s+research|ethical\s+review)\b

Corroborative evidence keywords

approved with conditions, expedited review, full board, participant information sheet, National Statement, data management plan

Proximity: 300 characters

Should match

HREC application - amendment HREC reference: HREC/2026/QMS/44718 Principal investigator: Dr Priya Ramanathan Submission type: Amendment 2 (new recruitment site) Review pathway: Expedited review Participants: 240 Determination: Approved with conditions - update the participant information sheet. — Populated ethics amendment with protocol, submission fields and review evidence (85)
IRB submission acknowledged Protocol number: HSR-882 Chief investigator: Jordan Staffson — Submission acknowledgement with labelled protocol and investigator fields only (75)
Serious adverse event report - Human Research Ethics Committee Project ID: 2025/ETH01933 Coordinating investigator: A/Prof Lee Marchetti Sponsor: Coralbay Therapeutics Pty Ltd Site: Sunshine Coast University Hospital Submission date: 07/10/2026 Participant 0412 was admitted with grade 3 hepatotoxicity; dosing suspended. The committee will consider the event at the next continuing review. — Serious adverse event report with project ID, coordinating investigator, sponsor/site/submission-date fields and continuing-review evidence (85)

Should not match

unrelated generic text without domain phrases — No relevant topic phrases present
placeholder value 12345 — Random text should not match topic-specific regex
student grant — Generic word pair from old broad template should not match
The museum acquisitions committee reviewed three landscape paintings. — An unrelated committee topic satisfies no research-review anchor
Policy guidance: this procedure explains how ethics application and IRB submission records are collected, stored and shared, who may access them and how long they are kept. Staff should read the privacy section before completing any form. It contains no details about any individual. — Policy/guidance text naming the topic without any populated record (65 discovery at most)
Ethics application form Protocol number: ____________________ Principal investigator: ____________________ Submission type: ____________________ Participants: ____________________ Signature: ____________ Date: __/__/____ — Blank form with unpopulated labelled fields (placeholder guard keeps it below 75)
The ethics committee agenda lists elections, meeting dates, and member training with no protocol, application, amendment, or decision. — Committee administration naming the committee only (65 discovery at most)
Training: this workshop explains how an ethics application moves through expedited review and when a protocol amendment needs full board review. — News/training prose about the topic without a populated record (65 discovery at most)

Known false positives

Common words and phrases related to institutional review board submissions 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.