Auto-Classification

Automatically detect PII and sensitive data in your columns

Auto-classification scans your column names and metadata to identify potentially sensitive data like emails, phone numbers, and SSNs. This helps you track PII for compliance without manual tagging.

How It Works

Auto-classification runs automatically during discovery:

1. Discovery scans your database metadata
2. Pattern matching checks column names against known PII patterns
3. Tags applied automatically to matching columns
4. Results visible in the asset detail page

Auto-classification analyzes column names and types only, never actual data values. A column named email gets tagged, but we never read the emails inside it.

Detected Patterns

Pattern	Example Column Names	Tag Applied
Email	email, user_email, email_address	pii:email
Phone	phone, phone_number, mobile	pii:phone
SSN	ssn, social_security, tax_id	pii:ssn
Credit Card	cc_number, card_number, credit_card	pii:credit-card
IP Address	ip, ip_address, client_ip	pii:ip-address
Address	address, street, zip_code	pii:address
Name	first_name, last_name, full_name	pii:name

Viewing Classified Data

To see which columns have been auto-classified:

1. Go to Assets in the sidebar
2. Click on any asset to view details
3. Look for Classification tags on columns
4. Or filter: Assets → Filter → Classification → select a PII type

Enabling Auto-Classification

Auto-classification is enabled by default for all data sources. To verify or change:

1. Go to Settings → Data Classification
2. Check that Auto-classification is toggled ON
3. Select which patterns to detect (all enabled by default)

Accuracy and Limitations

Auto-classification uses pattern matching on column names, which means:

It will catch:

• Columns with obvious names (email, phone_number, ssn)
• Common naming conventions (user_email, billing_address)

It may miss:

• Abbreviated names (em, ph)
• Non-English names
• Ambiguous names (data, value, field1)

False positives:

• email_sent_count might be tagged as email (it’s not PII)
• Review classifications and remove incorrect tags manually

Customizing Detection

To adjust which patterns are detected:

1. Go to Settings → Data Classification
2. Under Auto-classification Patterns, toggle patterns on/off
3. Changes apply to the next discovery run

Run a manual discovery after changing patterns to see updated classifications immediately.

Manual Override

If auto-classification gets it wrong:

To remove an incorrect tag:

1. Go to the asset detail page
2. Find the column with the incorrect tag
3. Click the tag → Remove

To add a missing tag:

1. Go to the asset detail page
2. Click Add Tag on the column
3. Select the classification that matches the data type (e.g., pii:email for email addresses, pii:phone for phone numbers)

Verification

After discovery runs, verify auto-classification is working:

1. Go to Assets → Filter → Classification → Has any
2. You should see assets with classified columns
3. Click into an asset to see which columns were tagged

If no assets appear:

• Verify auto-classification is enabled in Settings
• Check that discovery has run recently
• Your column names may not match detection patterns

Next Steps

Custom Tags

Add your own classification tags

Data Handling

How we protect your data