What Is Personal Business Information?

As a company you handle personal information of your clients and employees. You are legally required to protect that data and ensure that it is used correctly. However, it is difficult to determine what is considered to be personal information.

It is important to keep in mind that the definition of www.bizinfoportal.co.uk/2021/04/08/how-to-implement-your-business-growth-strategy/ personal data differs depending on the jurisdiction and country. It is generally defined as any information that can identify an individual. This includes information like the email address of a person or telephone number, however it includes any other information which can be linked to an individual, thereby making them identifiable. For example the date of birth or maiden name of their mother biometric data, information regarding passports and visas as well as credit card details as well as other sensitive data related to employment (e.g. performance ratings and discipline records).

Furthermore the information has to be able to be identified by others. If it is difficult for other people to recognize the information, then it is not considered personal. This is the “practicability test”.

The final way to determine whether something is personal is whether it pertains to a living person. This does not apply to documents that are business-related, such as invoices, orders or other documents used in business.

If sensitive personal information is lost or stolen, or if it is disclosed in any other manner without authorization, it can be extremely damaging. It is vital to train employees on the importance of protecting sensitive PII. It is also important to make steps to secure the information when not in use for example, by logging off computers unsupervised and destruction of paper records. It is essential to regularly review the PII in your system and restrict access to those with an underlying business reason to do such.