PII Scanner Step-by-Step Guide

What You'll Learn

The PII Scanner helps you find personal information exposed on websites, including:

• Email addresses and phone numbers
• Physical addresses and locations
• Government IDs (SSN, IBAN, Tax IDs)
• Credit card numbers and financial data
• Names and other identifying information

Before You Start

You'll need an API key from one of our detection providers:

• cloak.business — Enterprise solution with 320+ entity types
• anonym.legal — Starter-friendly with 260+ entity types

Both offer free trial tokens to get started.

The Scanner Interface

The scanner uses a simple 4-step wizard:

• Step 1 - Authenticate: Connect your API key
• Step 2 - Configure: Choose what to detect
• Step 3 - Target: Enter the website URL
• Step 4 - Analyze: Review results and export

Provider Comparison

• cloak.business: 320+ entity types, 317 regex patterns, image OCR, ML models
• anonym.legal: 260+ entity types, regex + NLP, desktop app included

Both providers use deterministic detection for audit-ready results.

Get Your API Key

If you don't have an API key yet:

• Visit your provider's dashboard
• Sign up for a free account
• Generate an API key in your settings
• Copy and paste it into the scanner

Your API key is stored locally and never shared with third parties.

What You'll See

• Token Balance: Your available API tokens
• Entity Types: Number of detectable PII types
• Languages: Supported detection languages
• Presets: Available compliance presets (GDPR, HIPAA, etc.)

Available Presets

• GDPR: European personal data (names, addresses, IDs)
• HIPAA: Healthcare data (patient IDs, medical records)
• PCI-DSS: Payment card data (credit cards, account numbers)
• Custom: Select individual entity types

You can also adjust the confidence threshold for detection sensitivity.

Why Language Matters

• Name detection uses language-specific NLP models
• Address formats vary by country (postcodes, states)
• Phone numbers have different formats per region
• IDs are country-specific (SSN, IBAN, DNI, INSEE)

48 languages are supported. Select the primary language of your target website.

URL Tips

• Enter the full URL including https://
• You can scan any public website
• For testing, use our demo pages (see below)
• The scanner will automatically discover linked pages

Page Selection

• The scanner crawls the website to find linked pages
• Check/uncheck pages to include or exclude them
• More pages = more tokens used
• Estimated token cost is shown before scanning

What Happens Next

• Each page is fetched and analyzed for PII
• Deterministic patterns detect structured data (IDs, IBANs)
• NLP models detect names and contextual data
• Results are compiled in real-time

Progress Information

• Current page being analyzed
• Pages completed vs. total
• Findings discovered so far
• Tokens used

You can stop the scan at any time if needed.

Understanding Results

• Compliance Grade: A-F rating based on findings
• Finding Count: Total PII instances detected
• Entity Types: Categories of PII found
• Severity: High, Medium, Low risk classification

Click on any finding to see the exact text and location.

Export Formats

• HTML Report: Formatted report for sharing with stakeholders
• JSON: Machine-readable format for automation
• CSV: Spreadsheet-compatible for further analysis

You're Ready!

You now know how to use the PII Scanner. Try it on your own website or use our demo pages below to see it in action.