Personally Identifiable Information (PII) Essay

Personally Identifiable Information (PII) refers to selective t for each oneing that advise be recitationd to divide or trace an individuals identity, either alone or when unite with dissimilar personal or identifying reading that is linked or linkable to a particular(prenominal) individual. 1 PII chiffonier include scarce is not limited to a wide name, an address, a home, office or winding telephone numbers, an email address, a sociable security number or other form of national ID number, an Internet communications protocol address or a fingerprint or other biometric data . Non-PII can become PII whenever additional entropy is do available that when combined with existing instruction, could be used to identify an individual.Most bulk dont give a second thought to the information they be asked to provide when using ecommerce sites or creating accounts on various sites such as Facebook and Twitter. What is the data you entered being used for? What happens to this i nformation at one time you have entered it and completed your action with a line of work? How is this information neckclothd and for how long? How is my information protected from theft? Will my information be sold to third parties? What atomic number 18 my rights should my personal data be confused or compromised? These atomic number 18 questions everyone should ask because your information in the wrong hands can be used to steal your money, steal your identity or both.According to the concealment Rights Clearinghouse, from April 2005 to April 2012 there were 3,062 data breaches nationwide impact more than 546,000,000 PII records . Businesses have an ethical and court-ordered obligation to protect your PII. Not yet bequeath a breach and succeeding loss of data cost businesses money, it will also affect their reputations. When collecting and storing PII businesses mustiness set policies on how the data is received, accessed, stored, communicate and released to third parties. Protecting PII involves a confederacy of only collecting and storing data that is need to complete the task or transaction at hand, using encryption to store and transmit data, data-loss prevention and policy gentility and compliance .Unfortunately there are not many standardized laws away of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability mo (HIPAA)2 exist that address the collection, depot and use of PII. There are even different standards among states when it comes to the notification of security breaches involving personal information. forty-six states, the District of Columbia, Guam, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands each have different legislation relations with notification of the theft of PII.Businesses have to see they are conscious(predicate) of the various national and State laws dealing with PII. They must reenact corporate policies and train their employees in the collection, handling, processing, storage and transmission of PII. Individuals mus t be wakeful and read the privacy policies of companies they do business with on-line so they are aware of what can and will be do with their personal information.