Personally Identifiable Information (Pii) and Ethics

The term “personally identifiable information” refers to any information which can be used, alone or combined with other sources, to identify an individual's identity as Krishnamurthy & Wills states in their article (Krishnamurthy & Wills, 2010). Some examples of information falling under this category are:

• Full name as per birth certificate or legal deed.

• Date and place of birth.

• Social Security, National Insurance, or other national identification number.

• Passport or resident permit.

• Driver's license number.

• Vehicle license plate number.

• Credit card and bank account information.

• Biometric elements such as fingerprints and retinas

These elements can be associated to other less relevant information which together may locate a specific individual. For this reason, it is important to carefully handle also secondary information such as country, state or city of residence, gender, race, and employment details, etc… In our lifetime, our “personal identifying information (PII) ” is disclosed to several companies, governmental agencies, educational facilities, businesses and healthcare providers which place our identifiers in many databases. Each time individuals face the risk of exposing this information.

Security breaches keep increasing every year under different circumstances, but in each scenario, sensitive personal data are accidentally or maliciously exposed. Accidental posting of information by government offices, files stolen from doctors’ office, archives hacked at the college are only few examples. The main problem is that our personal information is widely requested by companies and organizations, so it is hard to ensure a high standard of security over a long period of time. Individuals should minimize the risk by providing personal information only to organizations which can clearly identify their specific needs to collect sensitive data. Companies have legal and ethical responsibility to protect PII, and ensure that only...