Use case

Hide SSNs and US passport numbers on screen share

5 min read

  • Smart Blur
  • United States
  • Screen sharing
  • Screenshots

You’re walking a client through their account on a call, or grabbing a quick screenshot of a record for a colleague. The page has a Social Security number at the top, in full. Everyone on the call has seen it now, and the screenshot carries it wherever it gets forwarded next.

Of all the numbers to leak this way, an SSN is close to the worst. People keep the same one for life. It’s tied to their credit, their taxes and their benefits, and there’s no simple way to get a new one once it’s out.

What the law says

The US has no single privacy law that covers every business, so the states have filled the gap. All 50 of them, plus the District of Columbia, Guam, Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands, require businesses to tell people when their personal information has been compromised. A name with a Social Security number is the core of what those laws protect, and driver’s license and financial account numbers are usually on the list too.

A number seen on a call is a long way from a stolen database. The information is the same, though, and so is the basic problem: people saw it who weren’t supposed to. If the call is recorded or the screenshot is forwarded, it keeps traveling.

Relying on memory

Records systems put everything about a person on one screen. That’s what you want when you’re working alone, and the software has no idea when you’ve started sharing.

So it’s on you to check, every time, before you share or capture. Most days that works. Then comes the day you’re running late, or a page loads with more on it than you expected. Sharing one window instead of the whole screen doesn’t help much either, because the record is in that window.

Fixing a screenshot afterwards means finding every number by eye. If you take dozens a week, sooner or later you’ll miss one.

What Smart Blur catches without any setup

Smart Blur is a browser extension that blurs this kind of detail on the page itself, before anyone on the call sees it and before you take a screenshot. It runs on your computer. Nothing gets uploaded, and you don’t need an account.

Its built-in Patterns were written with US formats in mind, so a lot is covered as soon as it’s installed:

  • SSNs written 123-45-6789 or 123456789.
  • ITINs, which the IRS issues to people who can’t get an SSN. They’re nine digits starting with 9, laid out like an SSN, so the same pattern catches them.
  • EINs, the business tax ID, written 12-3456789.
  • Older passport numbers: nine digits, no letter.

There are two gaps.

One is an SSN written with spaces, 123 45 6789. Some systems display it that way, and so do a lot of forms that were scanned and then retyped. The built-in pattern only expects dashes or nothing.

The other is the newer passport number. Since the Next Generation passport arrived in 2021, numbers have been a letter followed by eight digits, like A12345678. Passport cards use the same shape. Older nine-digit books are valid until they expire, so you’ll see both kinds, and only the old one looks enough like an SSN to get caught.

Two patterns to add

Custom patterns are free. In the Smart Blur panel, open Settings → Patterns → Your own patterns and choose Write a regex.

SSN with spaces

\b\d{3}[\s-]?\d{2}[\s-]?\d{4}\b

This handles all three layouts, 123-45-6789, 123 45 6789 and 123456789, and ITINs written any of those ways. Masked numbers like ***-**-6789 are left alone; when only the last four digits show, that’s usually deliberate.

Passport book and card

\b[A-Z]\d{8}\b

Before you add this one, untick Match upper and lower case so only a capital letter counts. Otherwise it’ll also grab things like lowercase product codes.

Paste a few real samples into the Try it box underneath to see what gets hidden, then click Add pattern. If a rule ends up hiding something you need, tick Limit to specific domains or URLs and list only the sites where you work with these records. If you’ve never written a pattern before, the guide to custom patterns starts from the beginning.

Check it before you need it

Smart Blur is on by default, so new patterns start working straight away. Open a real record now and make sure every number is blurred. Better to find a gap today than halfway through a call.

For a screenshot, let the page blur and then capture it however you normally do. The blur ends up in the image. Smart Blur Pro has a Screenshot button that does both at once, and Share Shield, which turns protection on when you start sharing from your browser.

One limit to know about: patterns read text. A scanned card or a PDF preview is an image, so the number in it won’t be caught. Cover those with Click or Draw in the panel.

The rest of the record

An SSN is rarely the only thing on the page. Every state formats driver’s license numbers differently, so they get a post of their own. There’s also one on Medicare numbers and other patient details and one on bank account and routing numbers. If some of your records are Canadian, SINs and Canadian passports are covered too.

This post explains the law in general terms and isn’t legal advice.

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