Personally Identifiable Information

Personally identifiable information (PII) is any data that can be used to identify a specific person, either on its own or when pieced together with other details. A name, home address, email, phone number, date of birth or bank details all count, and so does a combination that points to one individual.

Think of it as the pieces of a jigsaw that together reveal exactly who someone is. It matters because privacy law makes a business responsible for protecting this information, and a leak can bring fines, lost trust and real harm to the people whose details were exposed, so it should be collected sparingly and guarded carefully.