As a business, you deal with personal information of your clients and employees. According to law, you’re required to safeguard the information and ensure that it’s used in a proper manner. It’s not always clear what constitutes personal information.
It is important to understand that the definition of personal data differs depending on the jurisdiction and country. In general, personal information refers to any information that can be used to identify an individual. This includes data such as the name of the person, their email address or phone number, but also any other data that can link to an person and make them identifiable by their birth date mother’s maiden names, biometric information, passport and visa information as well as credit card details, as well as other sensitive employment data (e.g. performance ratings and discipline records).
The information should be able to be identified by others. If it is extremely difficult for someone else to identify the information, it is not considered personal. This is the “practicability test”.
The final stage in determining whether something is personal is that it must be in the name of a living, identifiable person. This excludes information that is business-related, such as invoices or orders.
If sensitive personal information is stolen, lost, stolen, or disclosed in any other way without authorization, it can be extremely harmful. It is crucial to educate employees on the importance of protecting sensitive PII. Also, you must ensure that you secure the information when it is not in use, including the logging off of computers that are not being used systems and destruction of paper documents. It is also crucial to periodically review the PII stored in your system and limit access to individuals who have a business need to access the information.