What is personal information?

Your organization’s privacy management program and privacy policy all center around the protection of personal information. But what is personal information? Personal information is any information that can be used to identify a specific individual, such as their name, address, phone number, email address, date of birth, or other details that could be used to identify them. Business contact information is not personal information. The key factor is whether the information enables identification of a specific person through either association or inference. Some examples of personal information are:

• Name, age, sex, height
• Home address and phone number
• Race, ethnic origin, sexual orientation
• Medical information
• Health care history, including physical or mental disability
• Number or symbol assigned to the individual
• Income, purchases and spending habits
• Blood type, DNA code, fingerprints
• Marital or family status
• Religion
• Education
• Financial information
• Criminal information
• Employment information
• Personal views or opinions, except if they are about someone else

As the above list demonstrates, every organization collects information that would be considered personal information every day. That collection of personal information triggers responsibilities on your organization to protect the information collected and ensure that it is stored and safeguarded appropriately. Having a comprehensive privacy management program ensures protection of personal information and compliance with privacy laws and legislation.