Detecting person names correctly while avoiding false positives is a real time-saver for breach investigations, DSARs, and regulatory compliance. But can this process be automated with AI? Let’s find out.
Person Name Identifiers
A person name identifier is any information that can be used to directly or indirectly identify an individual, with their actual name being the primary example. Use cases where the ability to detect person names in files, documents, and text are both frequent and varied.
Need to round up all the information on a specific user after they submit a Data Subject Access Request (DSAR)? Or maybe you’ve suffered a data leak and need a list of all individuals involved and the locations where their information is stored.
These are a few common examples of how person name identifiers come in handy in PII collection, storage, and processing. So, how can you start recognizing them?
Name Entity Recognition
AI tools can be a real timesaver when you’ve received a DSAR and need to scan potentially hundreds of data instances, emails, and various storages for one specific name, no matter the context in which it appears.
At PII Tools, we approached this complex issue by developing our own, finely-tuned Named Entity Recognition engine, NER for short. Without getting too far into the technical weeds, the PII Tools NER is:
- Accurate; able to minimize false positives and negatives with near-perfect precision.
- Able to accept all text types from PDFs, Word documents, Excel, email, database fields, OCR, etc.
- Efficient (able to process large data sets).
- Flexible: retraining, new language addition, error correction, etc.
- Multilingual.
If you’d like to know more about the PII Tools NER and its development process, but sure to check out our other articles: Basics of Person Name Discovery and Detect Person Names in Text.
AI Name Detection
An accurate NER is the engine behind person name identification with AI assistance. At PII Tools, all forms of PII are automatically linked using its AI detectors. And the subsequently identified person names are then rolled together into Person Cards®.
Once a specific scan is calibrated, these AI detectors work overtime to pinpoint all PII for the data subject in question. That includes their name, email, DoB, credit card information, and PHI, from both structured and unstructured data, files, emails, and databases.
This comprehensive AI name recognition and discovery process is completed in moments, yielding a consolidated Person Card® that can be quickly exported into a spreadsheet for easy import into other eDiscovery platforms, as needed.
Accuracy of AI Name Recognition
That brings us to our main question: Can AI accurately identify person names in text? With the right NER, the answer is a resounding ‘yes’. For instance, PII Tools’ automated process for person name identification boasts +99% accuracy.
And this isn’t by accident. The PII Tools’ NER underwent a vigorous development process, which found it consistently among the top contenders on the market, while still managing to balance the other necessary criteria listed above.
F1 scores for different software doing personal name detection.
The result is noticeably accurate AI name recognition that helps users detect person names and all other forms of PII in 400+ file formats.
And just to be sure, the complete PII aggregation made possible by Person Cards® even includes all instances of unassigned PII for additional manual review and quality control. Because you can never be too safe when handling potential data leaks or DSARs.
Identify Names in Text using AI
The use of AI models in identifying person names in text is the natural evolution of precise PII detection. The accuracy and speed offered by AI detectors are unparalleled.
And when they’re backed by a thoroughly developed NER that’s consistently improving with flexible retrainings and error correction via machine learning, AI name recognition is only going to get better and better.
But you don’t have to take our word for it. Give PII Tools and its patented Person Cards® a try, and experience the difference of accurate and automated person name identification with AI detectors.
Schedule a Demo and Try Hands-On PII Discovery Driven by AI for Free!
