URL

Detects URL patterns.

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

global

Regulations

GDPR

Frameworks

CIS Controls, ISO 27001, NIST CSF, SOC 2

Data categories

network, pii

Scope

wide

Risk rating

5

Platform compatibility

Purview: Compatible, GCP DLP: Compatible, Macie: Compatible, Zscaler: Compatible, Palo Alto: Compatible, Netskope: Compatible

Pattern

\bhttps?://[^\s<>"{}|\^`\[\]]+\b

Corroborative evidence keywords

identifier, number, ID, address, age, birthday, citizenship, city, date of birth, [object Object], email, ethnicity, fax, first name, full name, gender, given name, last name, maiden name, middle name (+36 more)

Proximity: 300 characters

Should match

• https://example.com/path — Low-tier probe - ordinary URL without an operational label
• Webhook URL: https://hooks.example.net/events — Medium-tier probe - operational URL label without sensitive endpoint context
• Production endpoint - webhook URL: https://hooks.corp.local/admin?signature=abc123 — High-tier probe - operational label plus production, internal, admin, and signed-link context

Should not match

• ftp://files.example.com/doc — FTP scheme instead of HTTP/HTTPS
• example.com/path — Missing scheme (no http:// or https://)
• ://example.com — Missing scheme name before ://
• template example placeholder record identifier — Template/sample context should be excluded even when anchor words are present
• Public documentation: webhook URL https://docs.example.com/hooks — Public documentation contains a complete operationally labelled URL
• Template example: production endpoint webhook URL https://hooks.corp.local/admin?signature=abc123 — Template contains otherwise high-tier evidence

Known false positives

• Common words and phrases related to url 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.