US Social Security Number

Detects US Social Security Numbers (SSNs) in both formatted (XXX-XX-XXXX) and unformatted (XXXXXXXXX) representations. The pattern excludes invalid SSN ranges including area numbers 000, 666, and 900-999, group numbers 00, and serial numbers 0000, in accordance with SSA assignment rules. SSNs are critical PII used across healthcare, financial, and government contexts.

Type

regex

Engine

boost_regex

Confidence

high

Confidence justification

The pattern enforces SSA-defined exclusion rules for invalid area, group, and serial numbers, significantly reducing false positives. Combined with corroborative keyword proximity, this provides high-confidence detection of genuine SSNs.

Detection quality

Verified

Jurisdictions

us

Regulations

CCPA/CPRA, GLBA, HIPAA, SOX

Frameworks

ISO 27001, ISO 27701, PCI-DSS

Data categories

pii, phi, government-id

Scope

narrow

Risk rating

9

Platform compatibility

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

Pattern

\b(?!000|666|9\d{2})\d{3}[-\s](?!00)\d{2}[-\s](?!0000)\d{4}\b

Corroborative evidence keywords

social security, SSN, social security number, SS#, soc sec, ID number, identification, ID card, license, permit, registration, certificate, address, age, birthday, citizenship, city, date of birth, DOB, email (+21 more)

Proximity: 300 characters

Should match

• 123-45-6789 — Standard hyphen-delimited SSN format
• 123 45 6789 — Space-delimited SSN format
• 123456789 — Unformatted nine-digit SSN

Should not match

• 000-12-3456 — Area number 000 is never assigned by SSA
• 666-12-3456 — Area number 666 is never assigned by SSA
• 900-12-3456 — Area numbers 900-999 are reserved and not valid SSNs
• 123-00-6789 — Group number 00 is never assigned by SSA

Known false positives

• Random nine-digit numbers without context may match the pattern Mitigation: Require corroborative keyword proximity (e.g., 'SSN', 'social security') within 300 characters to confirm the match as a genuine SSN

Collections

• High-Confidence Starter Pack