Staying up to date on data privacy regulations.Where rules on PII and personal data apply.What pieces of information are considered PII?.What is personally identifiable information (PII)?.
Grasping the bigger picture is crucial for your organization’s security and legal compliance. From a legal standpoint, it could be a matter of breaches and violations with serious consequences. These traces might enable you to identify individuals, so you need to handle such data with the utmost caution. On the other hand, personal data has one legal meaning, which is defined by the General Data Protection regulation (GDPR), accepted as law across the European Union (EU).īoth terms cover common ground, classifying information that could reveal an individual’s identity directly or indirectly.īut why is all that so important? As a website admin, app creator or product owner, you need to be aware that the traces visitors and users leave behind could be of a sensitive nature. They all define and classify different pieces of information under the PII umbrella. The legal system in the United States is a blend of numerous federal and state laws and sector-specific regulations. PII is used in the US but no single legal document defines it. Personally identifiable information (PII) and personal data are two classifications of data that often cause confusion for organizations that collect, store and analyze such data.