12. The system of claim 11 wherein: the personal identifiers comprises one or more of a credit card number, a social security number, an account number, an employee number, a customer or patient number, an IP address, a driver license number, and a license plate number; a list of the plurality of classified data patterns is configurable based on user input; and a list of the validators is configurable based on user input.
11. A system comprising: a memory to store a plurality of classified data patterns for personal identifiers, the plurality of classified data patterns corresponding to variations of personal identifier formats, the personal identifiers including confidential information of a plurality of entities; a processor, coupled to the memory, to: search a text document for data expressed in a format that matches any of the plurality of classified data patterns corresponding to the variations of personal identifier formats, find, in the text document, one or more personal identifier candidates matching any of the plurality of classified data patterns, and validate each of the personal identifier candidates using one or more personal identifier validators to provide accurate detection of the confidential information in the text document.