Hide Partial Query Results

Question

I need to get the results that display to a webpage from one of my pl/sql queries to hide certain characters, but only in certain conditions. The problem is, one of our vendors has been making the mistake of placing their customers social security numbers in the description field. Naturally, displaying the SS numbers for all to see is a bad thing. So until we can get them to fix what they are doing, I need to hide part of the description field, but only if it is including a SS#.
For example, this is what they are doing in that field:
123456789Smith, John
When it's only supposed to be:
Smith, John
Not displaying the entire field is not an option because we have tons of vendors who are doing it right and we can't take away the functionality entirely. I need a way to say, If voucher_description begins with 9 numbers, block out those numbers. But, I don't know how to do that. Does anyone know how to do this, or where I can look for an example of what I need?
The Cursor.....
CURSOR c1 IS
select fund, appropriation, voucher_amount, gl_account_number,
department, vendor_invoice, job_number, reference_number,
check_category, voucher_description, discount
from vend_vouch_check
where voucher_number = vd_vouch_in
and (vd_check_in = check_number or
vd_check_in = 'NONE');
Here is how voucher_description is displayed. Is this where I need to make the condition?
for c1_rec in c1 loop
htp.tableData(c1_rec.voucher_description);
end loop;
Any help would be much appreciated. Thanks!

Answer 1

To build on Volder's reply :
with t as (select '123234345John, Smith' str from dual union all
             select 'abc123456789John Smith' from dual union all
             select 'john smith 555-666-8888' from dual union all
             select '1 john smith' from dual union all
             select '123-45-6789 Josh smith' from dual union all
             select 'Josh 123-45-6789 Smith' from dual)
select
  str
  ,translate(str,' 1234567890',' ')
  ,regexp_replace(str,'[0-9]')
  ,regexp_replace(str,'[0-9]{9}')
  ,regexp_replace(str,'[0-9]{9}|[0-9]{3}-[0-9]{2}-[0-9]{4}')
from
  t
STR                     TRANSLATE(STR,'1234567890','') REGEXP_REPLACE(STR,'[0-9]') SSN_9CHAR               SSN_W_DASH             
123234345John, Smith    John, Smith                    John, Smith                 John, Smith             John, Smith            
abc123456789John Smith  abcJohn Smith                  abcJohn Smith               abcJohn Smith           abcJohn Smith          
john smith 555-666-8888 john smith --                  john smith --               john smith 555-666-8888 john smith 555-666-8888
1 john smith             john smith                     john smith                 1 john smith            1 john smith           
123-45-6789 Josh smith  -- Josh smith                  -- Josh smith               123-45-6789 Josh smith   Josh smith            
Josh 123-45-6789 Smith  Josh -- Smith                  Josh -- Smith               Josh 123-45-6789 Smith  Josh  Smith            
6 rows selectedThe last one matches both the 9 digit variety and the with dashes variety of SSN, while leaving other digits.
I did this with the info at http://www.regular-expressions.info/quickstart.html
Does anybody more familiar with regexp have any advice?