Definition of Personally Identifiable Information (PII)

When you evaluate the security requirements of an application, the sensitivity of information that is being stored, processed, or transmitted by the application is important. Personally Identifiable Information (PII) must be handled with extra security. PII is data that is considered personal in nature and could be used to compromise the privacy of an individual or for identity theft. Extra care should be taken with servers that contain PII. To address this specific need, some Rackspace content discusses PII.

What is PII?

PII includes the following information:

(i) a combination of any information that identifies an individual with that individual’s sensitive and non-public financial, health or other data or attribute, such as a combination of the individual’s name, address, or phone number with the individual’s social security number or other government issued number, financial account number, date of birth, address, biometric data, mother’s maiden name, or other personally identifiable information;

(ii) any “non-public personal information” as that term is defined in the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act found at 15 USC Subchapter 1, §6809(4),

and (iii) “protected health information” as defined in the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act found at 45 CFR §160.103.

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