Consumers no longer have to go to a store to make purchases, buy groceries, nor go to the Motor Vehicle Administration to renew their tags. Technology has made it so that you can complete these transactions with a click of a mouse. However, it is also increasingly easy to steal someone’s information. The personal information each site collects can be sold and used by third party organizations. This personal information which is respectively called Personally Identifiable Information (PII) is, “any uniquely identifying information that can be used to contact or locate a person, or can be used in conjunction with other sources to identify a single individual.”
Examples of Personally Identifiable Information • Full name
• Address
• Phone number
• Social security number
• Driver’s license number
• Mother’s maiden name
• Date of birth
• Biometrics information

These common types of PII alone are not harmful to the individual. They are incapable of being easily identified, unless you pair them with other identifiers. For instance, combining name or address or phone number with a birth date or social security number make an individual easier to identify.
The development in technology makes it increasingly easier to access an individual’s personal information. Companies have the ability to gain the personal information of anyone that has visited their site without them knowing it. Most websites have privacy policies; however the interpretation level and diversity of the policy varied widely. The arrival of e-commerce has amplified public concern about privacy, especially on electronic networks. With every website visit, a visitor leaves an electronic trace that can be retrieved and analyzed. Website operators use cookies, and other technology to store data. Cookies are text files with your user name, password, and preferences that are stored on your computer’s hard disk. After the completion of data entry, the system generates a user ID. During the next site visit, the system retrieves that user ID and opens a customized webpage. Cookies are not detrimental to your computer, the unauthorized selling of information to Marketing companies is.
“Unauthorized access, use, or disclosure of PII can seriously harm individuals by contributing to identity theft, blackmail, or embarrassment.” Treatment of PII is very distinct from other data because not only does it need to be protected. It also needs to be collected, maintained and disseminated according to Federal Law guidelines. The overseers of PII need to have and maintain certain parameters in place to better protect individual’s information.

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Narayanan, A. S. (2010). Privacy and Security: Myths and Fallacies of "Personally Identifiable Information" . Stanford: Association of Computing Machinery.
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