Smart Detection is what lets WP Record With Privacy hide data on any plugin's screens without being told about them. Instead of looking names up in the database, it reads the page the way a person does, and masks whatever sits in a personal-data position.
The four switches:
You'll find them in ⚙️ Settings under 🧠 Smart Detection. All four are on by default. The Settings screen's advice is to leave them on unless one is over-reaching on a particular screen.
📊 Table columns Reads the column headings of every table. A column headed Subscriber, Customer, Email or Total Spent gets masked in every row. This single rule covers most admin screens.
🏷️ Field labels Handles detail views: a label followed by its value (Name: and then the name), definition lists, and WordPress's own profile and order tables where the label sits at the start of each row.
🖼️ Avatar neighbours Text sitting beside an avatar is almost always a person's name, so it is masked when it reads like one. It also masks the initials inside an avatar circle and the image's alt text.
🔗 Email neighbours If a row or card contains an email address, the short line of text next to it that reads like a name is treated as that person's name. This catches list rows that have no heading and no avatar.
Avatar neighbours and Email neighbours need at least one name filter switched on.
The words it recognises:
Headings and labels are matched as whole words, ignoring capitals and punctuation. A few examples:
- People: Name, Full Name, Subscriber, Customer, Contact, Client, Member, Recipient, Lead, User, Buyer, Author, Sender, Attendee, Student, Partner, Bill To, Ship To, Account Holder, Display Name
- Email: Email, Email Address, Mail, From, To
- Username: Username, Login, Handle, Nickname, Screen Name
- Phone: Phone, Telephone, Mobile, Cell, WhatsApp, Fax
- Address: Address, Street, City, Town, Postcode, Zip, State, County, Region
- Money: Total, Amount, Revenue, Price, Paid, Balance, Subtotal, Cost, Order Total
- Company: Company, Organisation, Business, Employer, Agency, Brand
It also reads the hidden labels that many plugins put on their table cells in the page code, and common class names such as customer-name or subscriber-email.
Numbers on their own:
Under a money, phone or address heading, a cell is masked even when it holds only numbers and symbols, such as £49.00, 07700 900123 or 90210. A phone needs at least six digits. Under a name or email heading, a cell made only of numbers is left alone, because a number is never a name. The Blurred style blurs the whole cell whatever it contains.
The safety rules:
Masking the wrong thing makes a screen look broken, so Smart Detection is deliberately careful:
- Labels that look personal but aren't are skipped: Last Contact, First Seen and Last Login are dates; Campaign Name, Product Name and List Name belong to things, not people; Date, Created, Registered, ID and counts like Total Opens are left alone.
- A vague heading like Name is judged by its surroundings. Under a heading about subscribers or customers it is treated as people. Under a heading about broadcasts, products or orders, only values that genuinely read like a person's name are masked, never subject lines or product titles.
- Status words such as Active, Pending, Paid or Completed, times like 3 days ago, and plain numbers are never masked.
- The left admin menu and code blocks are never touched. In the top admin bar only your own name is hidden. Form fields are handled separately: see Exactly What Gets Hidden, And What Does Not.
Screens that load data later:
Smart Detection keeps watching the page. Tables that load after the page, slide-out detail panels and infinite scroll are all masked as they appear, and it sweeps the page again a few times in the first seconds for dashboards that draw themselves late.
When to switch one off:
If one switch masks something it shouldn't on a screen you need to show, turn that switch off, click Save Settings and check again. The other switches, the filters and Point & Mask keep working.