I'm sure the SEC has an array of tools with which to comb through the data, but I would bet that the vast majority of these cases against non-professional traders are flagged by identifying retail brokerage accounts where the notional value of options outstanding is 1) larger than some % of the the portfolio size (e.g. > 50%) 2) with exposure concentrated on 1-3 stocks 3) with no similarly-sized follow-up trades in o…
i’m pretty sure you’re not supposed to do it at all but maybe dependent on the situation.