Systems, devices and methods for automatic detection and masking of private data

A computer-implemented method, comprising:

• receiving a data stream;
• detecting, by at least one processor, patterns of characters within the received data stream;
• selecting, by the at least one processor, a set of characters within the received data stream based on the detected patterns;
• determining, by the at least one processor, validity of the selected set of characters according to a result of a function that evaluates a relationship between at least one character of the selected set of characters and a plurality of other characters of the selected set of characters;
• and
• determining, by the at least one processor, whether to mask at least a portion of the selected set of characters within the received data stream based on the determined validity.

A system comprising:

• a computer processor;
• and
• a non-transitory memory communicatively coupled to the computer processor having computer-executable instructions stored thereon that when executed by the computer processor cause the computer processor to perform:
• for each of a plurality of sets of data, in response to receiving an event signal indicative of an occurrence, if any, of at least one of a number of defined events associated with the set of data, determining whether the set of data that gave rise to the occurrence of the event to which the event signal corresponds includes a subset of data that matches at least one of a number of defined patterns;
• and
• for at least one of the plurality of sets of data that is determined to have at least one subset of data that matches at least one of the number of defined patterns, causing at least a portion of the at least one subset of data that matches the at least one of the number of defined patterns to be masked.