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In information security and privacy, personally identifiable information or personally identifying information (PII) is any piece of information which can potentially be used to uniquely identify, contact, or locate a single person.
Although the concept of PII is ancient, it has become much more important as information technology and the Internet have made it easier to collect PII, leading to a profitable market in collecting and reselling PII. PII can also be exploited by criminals to stalk or steal the identity of a person, or to plan a person's murder or robbery, among other crimes. As a response to these threats, many web site privacy policies specifically address the collection of PII, and lawmakers have enacted a series of legislation to limit the distribution and accessibility of PII.
Examples
Items which might be considered PII include, but are not limited to, a person's:
- Full name (if not common)
- National identification number
- Telephone number
- Street address
- E-mail address
- IP address (in some cases)
- Vehicle registration plate number
- Driver's license number
- Face, fingerprints, or handwriting
Information that is not generally considered personally identifiable, because many people share the same trait, include:
- First or last name, if common
- Country, state, or city of residence
- Age, especially if non-specific
- Gender or race
- Name of the school they attend or workplace
- Grades, salary, or job position
- Criminal record
When a person wishes to remain anonymous, descriptions of them will often employ several of the above, such as "a 34-year-old black man who works at Target". Note that information can still be private, in the sense that a person may not wish for it to become publicly known, without being personally identifiable. Moreover, sometimes multiple pieces of information, none of which are PII, may uniquely identify a person when brought together; this is one reason that multiple pieces of evidence are usually presented at criminal trials. For example, there may be only one Inuit person named Steve in the town of Lincoln Park, Michigan.'''
Related laws
Recently lawmakers have paid a great deal of attention to protecting a person's PII. One of the primary focuses of the comprehensive medical privacy law, HIPAA, is to protect a patient's PII. The U.S. Senate has recently proposed the Privacy Act of 2005, which attempts to strictly limit the display, purchase, or sale of PII without the person's consent. Similarly, the Anti-phishing Act of 2005 attempts to prevent the acquiring of PII through phishing.
U.S. lawmakers have paid special attention to the social security number because it can be easily used to commit identity theft. The Social Security Number Protection Act of 2005 and Identity Theft Prevention Act of 2005 each seek to limit the distribution of an individual's social security number.
On the other hand, many businesses see this increasing load of legislation as excessive, an unnecessary expense, and a barrier to progress. The increasing complexity of the laws might force companies to consult a lawyer just to engage in simple business practices such as server logging, user registration, and credit checks. Some have predicted such measures may inhibit the industry as a whole, lowering wages and creating a barrier to entry. For this reason, a number of privacy laws stress the "acceptable uses" of PII, such as Massachusetts' Public Records Law and Fair Information Practices Act.
Forensics
In forensics, the tracking down of the identity of a criminal, personally identifiable information is critical in zeroing in on the subject. Criminals will go to great trouble to avoid leaving any PII; they wear masks (faces and hair are PII), gloves (fingerprints are PII), clothing that covers personal marks (tattoos and scars are PIII) and avoid writing anything in their own handwriting (handwriting can be PII).
Personal safety
In some professions, it is dangerous for a person's identity to become known, because this information might be exploited violently by their enemies; for example, their enemies might hunt them down or kidnap loved ones to force them to cooperate. For this reason, the United States Department of Defense has a strict policy controlling release of PII. * This is also the reason usually given in fiction for superheros and secret agents to disguise their faces and withhold their real names.
See also
- Personal identity (philosophical concept)
- pseudonymity - Users sometimes compromise their pseudonymity by including personally identifiable information in messages, posts, or user pages.
External links
- A History of Privacy Issues: Personally Identifiable Information. Discusses the privacy issues of the P-Trak system.
- P3PWriter: Privacy Definitions: Personally Identifiable Information (PII)
- Outsourcing Privacy Laws
"Personally identifiable information"