Introduction

This week, we will continue the theme of why it’s essential to be in control of your personal identifiable information (PII). The aim is for this series of articles to be informative so you, the reader, can build your strategies and tools for managing online safety and better data management. Last week I wrote an introductory article, “Why should you take control of our personal information“. If this is your first visit to my blog, it might be worth having a quick read. I briefly touched on several topics: data collection by corporates, the monetary value of your data as perceived by various actors and how political organisations target you based on data collected. Over the coming weeks, we will expand in more detail plus introduce some new subjects to the mix.

What is personal identifiable information

 Ok, let’s start with some basics. When people talk about PII, what do they mean, and why is it important to manage who has access to this data? Personal identifiable information is any information that can identify an individual on its own or when added to other bits of data [GDPR definition]. It includes names, addresses, date of birth, telephone numbers, email addresses, bank details, tax identification numbers, and credit cards details, to name but a few. The information, as mentioned earlier, is a small subset of data. Now, let’s add information about driving habits, medical conditions, employment history, ethnicity, sexual orientation, financial health, shopping habits, relationships, criminal record, how you vote, or what organisations you donate money to or support. We now start to see the creation of a digital identity. 

Why protect your data?

For most people, protecting data is about preventing fraud, so it’s really about security. 61% of fraud reported in 2019 to the CIFA was identity fraud, the aim to gain access to people’s bank details, credit or debit cards. People should make an effort to minimise the amount of personal information readily available to stop their identity from being used to open lines of credit or buy goods and services illegally. 

Some individuals have concerns about the amount of information that governments and corporates collect about them. Privacy is the key concern for these people, to such an extent that they want to remain anonymous or refrain from using the internet altogether. 

Not all governments are accepting of alternative political, religious or sexual preferences. In many cases, it’s hazardous to be open about what you believe in or who you are. There must be a safe space on the internet where people can communicate, free from persecution. 

Whether it’s privacy or security, both groups of people may have legitimate reasons for their concerns. There is a balance, especially when it comes to privacy. Bad actors, criminals or rogue states want anonymity to avoid detection, but does that justify many governments’ desire for mass surveillance? It’s a very emotive subject, with many politicians responsible for national security highlighting only the perceived dangers of encryption to maintain anonymity, but not the benefits. 

It’s essential to understand that some people need to maintain privacy for their safety. For example, it’s still illegal to be part of the LGBT+ community in 69 countries worldwide. In many autocratic countries, opposition politicians are imprisoned for their moderate beliefs and opposition to their incumbent government. The Russian opposition leader highly critical of Putin, Alex Navalny, has been incarcerated allegedly based on trumped-up charges for speaking out against corruption.

Summary

For many individuals and small businesses, understanding how to protect their online activities is challenging. The whole privacy/security issue makes the experience of surfing the internet very daunting. This article has given a better understanding of what PII is and why it’s essential to keep it safe for the less tech-savvy. In next week’s post, I will look at what actors are collecting your data and discuss the reasons. Later in this series, I’ll talk about protecting your data. If you like this article and you get value from it, please share and follow my blog.