{"id":179566,"date":"2019-05-15T11:08:15","date_gmt":"2019-05-15T16:08:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ntegrait.com\/what-is-pii-non-pii-and-personal-data\/"},"modified":"2019-05-15T11:08:15","modified_gmt":"2019-05-15T16:08:15","slug":"what-is-pii-non-pii-and-personal-data","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ntegrait.com\/what-is-pii-non-pii-and-personal-data\/","title":{"rendered":"What Is PII, Non-PII, and Personal Data?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Personal<\/p>\n

Data security becomes more important with each passing year. It\u2019s important to have a good understanding of the terms that both governments and the information security industry use. Understanding these terms will help you lead your organization to comply with today\u2019s regulations as well as whatever new regulations are coming down the pike. Today we\u2019ll define three major terms: personally identifiable information, non-personally identifiable information, and personal data.<\/p>\n

Personally Identifiable Information (PII)<\/h2>\n

Personally identifiable information, or PII, is information that organizations may hold on individuals that can be tied to the individuals\u2019 identities. The\u00a0National Institute of Standards and Technology<\/a>\u00a0provides a legal definition for the USA:<\/p>\n

\n

PII is any information about an individual maintained by an agency, including (1) any information that can be used to distinguish or trace an individual\u2018s identity, such as name, social security number, date and place of birth, mother\u2018s maiden name, or biometric records; and (2) any other information that is linked or linkable to an individual, such as medical, educational, financial, and employment information.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

PII comes in two varieties. Linked information is the more sensitive variety. Anything that can by itself be used as an identifier is considered linked information. Social security numbers, driver\u2019s license numbers, full names, and physical addresses are all examples of linked information.<\/p>\n

Linkable information is the second category. Linkable information can\u2019t do much on its own, but it becomes powerful when linked with other pieces of information. ZIP code, race, age range, and job information are all examples of linkable information.<\/p>\n

Non-Personally Identifiable Information (Non-PII)<\/h2>\n

Non-personally identifiable information, or non-PII, is information that doesn\u2019t fall into the above categories. All sorts of information falls into this category. In the digital world, IP addresses, cookies, and device IDs are considered non-PII, since (unlike what you see on TV) these pieces of information can\u2019t be used to identify an individual.<\/p>\n

Personal Data<\/h2>\n

Personal data sounds like a casual way to describe the above, but it\u2019s more than that. Personal data is a term used in Europe that is roughly equivalent to PII. Euro-centric publications won\u2019t tend to use the term PII unless discussing something explicitly American. Many of the same principles of PII apply to personal data, but there are some further ramifications that are important to know.<\/p>\n

As the USA does with PII, the EU has a specific definition for personal data, defined in\u00a0GDPR<\/a>\u00a0as this:<\/p>\n

\n

Article 4(1): \u2018personal data<\/strong>\u2019 means any information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person (\u2018data subject\u2019); an identifiable natural person is one who can be identified, directly or indirectly, in particular by reference to an identifier such as a name, an identification number, location data, an online identifier or to one or more factors specific to the physical, physiological, genetic, mental, economic, cultural or social identity of that natural person.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

A Crucial Difference Between PII and Personal Data<\/h2>\n

One of the most crucial differences between the NIST\u2019s definition of PII and GPDR\u2019s definition of personal data is this: GPDR concludes that even cookies, IP addresses, and \u201cother identifiers such as radio frequency identification tags\u201d can be personal data, especially when combined with other unique identifiers.<\/p>\n

In short, the EU\u2019s GPDR guidelines are more restrictive than their USA equivalents. This is the explanation for the rash of \u201ccookie notices\u201d that\u2019s spread around the web, and it could have implications for your business.<\/p>\n

Wrap Up<\/h2>\n

If you need more information about PII, non-PII, and personal data, don\u2019t hesitate to reach out. We\u2019re here to serve you and meet your IT needs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Data security becomes more important with each passing year. It\u2019s important to have a good understanding of the terms that both governments and the information security industry use. Understanding these terms will help you lead your organization to comply with today\u2019s regulations as well as whatever new regulations are coming down the pike. Today we\u2019ll…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":159188,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[64],"class_list":["post-179566","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","tag-techbytes"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nWhat Is PII, Non-PII, and Personal Data? - IT Services in Virginia<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ntegrait.com\/what-is-pii-non-pii-and-personal-data\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"What Is PII, Non-PII, and Personal Data? - IT Services in Virginia\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Data security becomes more important with each passing year. 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