Personal Data

Personal data is, pursuant to Article 4(1) of the GDPR, any information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person. A person is considered identifiable if they can be identified directly or indirectly — in particular by reference to a name, an identification number, location data, an online identifier, or to one or more specific factors.

Typical examples of personal data include: first and last names, email addresses, phone numbers, residential addresses, IBANs and bank account details, social security numbers, dates of birth, credit card numbers, IP addresses, and location data. Photographs, biometric data, and health data also fall under this definition, with the latter being subject to enhanced protection as special categories of personal data (Article 9 GDPR).

Datenmaske automatically detects the most common categories of personal data in PDF documents: names (via NER), email addresses, phone numbers, IBANs, addresses, social security numbers, dates of birth, and credit card numbers. Detection is performed via a combination of rule-based patterns and Named Entity Recognition (NER), with all data being processed exclusively on EU servers.