Unpublished thesis data

Identifies pre-publication thesis manuscripts or thesis datasets, not preliminary results from unrelated operational work: direct thesis/draft/embargo anchors enforce with one thesis field, broad findings/results language needs two independent thesis fields, and topic vocabulary alone remains discovery-only.

Type

regex

Engine

boost_regex

Confidence

medium

Confidence justification

category-aware structural regex with anchor and context constraints replaces phrase-only detection. Added context gating and exclusion rules improve precision and reduce incidental matches.

Detection quality

Topic false positive

Jurisdictions

global

Regulations

GDPR, AML/CTF Act (Cth), HRIPA (Cth), IPA 2009 (Qld), My Health Records Act 2012 (Cth), NDB Scheme (Cth), Privacy Act 1988 (Cth), TIA Act 1979 (Cth)

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

(?is)\b(?:unpublished\s+thesis|thesis\s+data|dissertation\s+draft|research\s+findings|preliminary\s+results|thesis\s+manuscript|doctoral\s+research|masters\s+thesis|thesis\s+committee|thesis\s+supervisor|embargoed\s+research|unpublished\s+manuscript)\b

Corroborative evidence keywords

unpublished thesis data, unpublished, thesis, data, education, research, administration

Proximity: 300 characters

Should match

• unpublished thesis — Primary topic phrase match
• thesis data — Case-insensitive topic phrase match
• dissertation draft — Alternative topic phrase match
• research findings — Additional topic phrase match (same-span — discovery inventory only; enforcement now needs separate thesis-field evidence)
• Doctoral candidate DC-118, dissertation draft chapter 4; thesis dataset v7 remains embargoed until 2027-02-01 under supervisor L. Wong. — Dissertation-draft anchor with candidate, chapter, dataset, and supervisor fields reaches the enforcing tiers
• A university press release summarizes preliminary results from a completed public opinion poll. — University-adjacent results match the topic vocabulary only (discovery — no thesis fields)

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 finance dashboard reports preliminary quarterly revenue for three regions. — Operational financial results contain no thesis-topic phrase

Known false positives

• Common words and phrases related to unpublished thesis data 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.

References

• https://www.nhmrc.gov.au/about-us/publications/australian-code-responsible-conduct-research-2018
• https://www.legislation.gov.au/C2004A03712/latest/text