Personally Identifiable Information (PII)

What Does Personally Identifiable Information (PII) Mean?

Personal Identifiable Information (PII or pii) is a type of data that identifies the unique identity of an individual. It is one of the most basic forms of personal information and includes an individual’s name, gender, address, telephone, email address or basic biometric data information that is electronically stored within a device or application.

Techopedia Explains Personally Identifiable Information (PII)

PII is mainly used in information security (IS) services to search, locate and identify specified individuals. PII is represented in virtually all offline and online IT applications, services, websites and organizations that store and maintain PII for multiple functions and processes.

For example, a server implements a fingerprint-based access control mechanism to identify an individual, thus validating only authorized personnel and maintaining biometric PII for all legitimate staff. Information systems with higher information security and privacy concerns maintain comprehensive PII data to limit system access to legitimate users.