Data Privacy Week – topic 2: What is PII?

Personally identifiable information (PII) can be defined as information about an individual that can be used to distinguish or trace an individual’s identity. Examples include names, social security numbers, date and place of birth or biometric records and any other information that is linkable to an individual, such as medical, educational, financial or employment records.

Privacy laws and regulations are typically more focused on protecting the types of PII that are considered sensitive. These can include standalone sensitive PII (e.g., financial, social security, driver’s license or passport numbers or biometric records) or sensitive information that becomes identifiable because an identifier is linked to it (e.g., medical educational, financial, income tax or employment records). A definition of what WSU considers PII can be found in the WSU Policy 19.20: Data Sensitivity Classification.

For more information visit the WSU Privacy SharePoint Site. For any privacy related questions or concerns, reach out to the privacy officer at privacy@wichita.edu or via phone at 316-978-4447 (4HIP).