personal information

personal information /personal data / personally-identifiable information (PII)

USA

Broadly, information relating to an individual that can be used to identify, locate or contact that individual, alone or when combined with other personal or identifying information.

Examples of personal information include an individual's:

• Name.

• Home or other physical address.

• E-mail address.

• Telephone number.

• Social Security number.

• Passport number.

• Driver's license number.

• Bank account number.

• Credit or debit card number.

• Personal characteristics, including photographic image, fingerprints, handwriting or other unique biometric data.

For US federal and state privacy and data security laws, the precise definition of personal information varies depending on the specific jurisdiction and law, and may be more narrowly defined.

For more information, see Practice Note, US Privacy and Data Security Law: Overview (www.practicallaw.com/6-501-4555).

European Union data protection laws use the similar term personal data. Under the EU Data Protection Directive, personal data is any information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person (referred to as a data subject). An identifiable person is one who can be identified, directly or indirectly, in particular by reference to an identification number or to one or more factors specific to his physical, physiological, mental, economic, cultural or social identity (Directive 95/46/EC, Art. 2(a)).

Because each EU member state has separately implemented the Directive's requirements into its national data protection legislation, the definition of personal data adopted by particular EU member state may be different from Directive's definition.