what is personally identifiable information pii 
personally identifiable information pii is information that when used alone or with other relevant data can identify an individual pii may contain direct identifiers e g passport information that can identify a person uniquely or quasi identifiers e g race that can be combined with other quasi identifiers e g date of birth to successfully recognize an individual either direct and sensitive or indirect and nonsensitive pii types include but are not limited to understanding personally identifiable information pii advancing technology platforms have changed the way businesses operate governments legislate and individuals relate with digital tools like cellphones the internet ecommerce and social media there has been an explosion in the supply of all kinds of data big data as it is called is being collected analyzed and processed by businesses and shared with other companies the wealth of information provided by big data has enabled companies to gain insight into how to better interact with customers however the emergence of big data has also increased the number of data breaches and cyberattacks by entities who realize the value of this information as a result concerns have been raised over how companies handle the sensitive information of their consumers regulatory bodies are seeking new laws to protect the data of consumers while users are looking for more anonymous ways to stay digital sensitive vs nonsensitive piipersonally identifiable information pii can be sensitive or nonsensitive sensitive personal information includes legal statistics such as the above list is by no means exhaustive companies that share data about their clients normally use anonymization techniques to encrypt and obfuscate the pii so it is received in a form that is not personally identifiable an insurance company that shares its clients information with a marketing company will mask the sensitive pii included in the data and leave only information related to the marketing company s goal nonsensitive or indirect pii is easily accessible from public sources like phone books the internet and corporate directories examples of nonsensitive or indirect pii include the above list contains quasi identifiers and examples of nonsensitive information that can be released to the public this type of information cannot be used alone to determine an individual s identity however nonsensitive information although not delicate is linkable this means that nonsensitive data when used with other personal linkable information can reveal the identity of an individual de anonymization and re identification techniques tend to be successful when multiple sets of quasi identifiers are pieced together and can be used to distinguish one person from another regulating and safeguarding personally identifiable information pii has become a dominant issue for individuals corporations and governments safeguarding piimultiple data protection laws have been adopted by various countries to create guidelines for companies that gather store and share the personal information of clients some of the basic principles outlined by these laws state that some sensitive information should not be collected unless for extreme situations 12also regulatory guidelines stipulate that data should be deleted if no longer needed for its stated purpose and personal information should not be shared with sources that cannot guarantee its protection 1cybercriminals breach data systems to access pii and then sell it to willing buyers in underground digital marketplaces for example in 2015 the internal revenue service irs suffered a data breach leading to the theft of more than 100 000 taxpayers pii 3using quasi information stolen from multiple sources the perpetrators were able to access an irs website application by answering personal verification questions that should have been privy to the taxpayers only safeguarding pii may not always be the sole responsibility of a service provider in some cases it may be shared with the individual 