Personally Identifiable Information (PII), as used in information security, is information that can be used on its own or with other information to identify, contact, or locate a single person, or to identify an individual in context. The abbreviation PII is widely accepted, but the phrase it abbreviates has four common variants based on personal, personally, identifiable, and identifying.
All stories in Personally identifiable information
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Rebuilding trust in democracy starts with digital identity verification
As Mark Zuckerberg recently wrote, “free and fair elections are the heart of every democracy.” Despite controversy over ...
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Report: ICE database tracks nearly 60% of US population without a warrant
Internal documents revealed by the ACLU through a Freedom of Information Act request reveal the extent and illegal nature ...
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2.7 million patient calls to Swedish healthcare hotline left unprotected online
2.7 millions audio recordings of calls made to 1177 Vårdguiden were left online without any authentication or encryption. ...
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15 strategies everyone should know to protect their online information
As technology increases at an ever-faster rate, so too do the ways in which our information can be put at risk. With the ...
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How I became pen pals with the kid who stole my iPhone
I’d always wanted to go to India. So I was pretty outraged when, in 2011, my iPhone went without me. I think it’s only ...
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Google has quietly dropped ban on personally identifiable web tracking
This article was originally published by ProPublica on October 21st, 2016. When Google bought the advertising network ...
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Facebook convinced teens to sell their privacy for $20
Another day, another Facebook controversy
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ShapeShift forced to 'help' police with 60 cryptocurrency inquiries last year
The FBI and the SEC were noted as the most common US agencies to request information related to cryptocurrency users on ShapeShift ...
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This Chinese app reportedly maps nearby debtors to get you to shame them
China has reportedly launched a WeChat mini-app to highlight debtors around you, in an effort to shame them for not paying ...
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China hacked the US Navy and stole personal info on at least 100K sailors
The US Department of Justice today unsealed documents pertaining to the Chinese state-sponsored hacking group APT 10's years-long ...
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The free internet makes us the product — we need to stop it
The bad headlines continue to stack up for Facebook this year: from the Cambridge Analytica scandal, to the New York Times ...
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What GoDaddy is doing wrong about privacy — here’s what it should do
GoDaddy asks users to pay for privacy protection. It's distasteful that a large domain registrar would charge a fee for a ...
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Here's how we take back control over our digital identities
The data reckoning has arrived. We’re already too familiar with the breach headlines: Equifax, Under Armour, Target. But ...
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Don’t post your kid online
As we set out on a two-hour drive, my pregnant girlfriend told me she didn’t want anyone, including ourselves, to share ...
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We’re living in digital serfdom — trading privacy for convenience
Think for a second: compared to your grandparents and parents, what do you actually own outright? Why own when you can ...
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Is Tim Cook the champion of privacy?
Today’s ceaseless data scandals have everyone talking about privacy, especially insofar as our favorite digital devices ...
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Here’s how face recognition tech can be GDPR compliant
Ah, face recognition, that nifty little feature that's already making the still new fingerprint scanners (kind of) obsolete. ...
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Facebook fined 0.001% of its 2017 revenue for Cambridge Analytica scandal
UK watchdog just fined Facebook £500,000 for the Cambridge Analytica scandal, but the amount is unlikely to affect the social ...
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Here's how to keep advertisers from using your phone number on Facebook
A Gizmodo report on Wednesday detailed the latest in a long series of Facebook privacy blunders. The report said, and Facebook ...
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Google and Mastercard are secretly tracking your offline purchases
Google has quietly been providing select advertisers a "stockpile" of offline credit card transaction data. After a four ...
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EU suggests law to stop Cambridge Analytica-style election meddling
The European Commission is currently working on a proposal which will impose fines on political parties using Cambridge Analytica-style ...
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GDPR is eroding our privacy, not protecting it
It's been more than a couple of months since GDPR (the EU General Data Protection Regulation) came into force. The promise ...
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Privacy Statement
Privacy Statement This Privacy Statement applies to personal data collected, used and stored by The Next Web B.V. having ...
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4 practical tips to verify if your customers are who they say they are
In the future, a digital ID may replace all your current forms of identification. At the same time, as we become more and ...
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5 types of social spam (and how to prevent them)
Spam can be defined as irrelevant or unsolicited messages sent over the Internet. These are usually sent to a large number ...
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5 authentication methods putting passwords to shame
There’s no arguing that passwords are becoming less and less reliable in protecting our data and identities. Their management, ...
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7 ways to protect your privacy on the internet
Here are seven ways you can protect your personal information and privacy online
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9 ways of gathering meaningful data about your customers
Understanding your customers better isn't as complex as you might think, but it does require a thoughtful analysis of where ...
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Three reasons why Disconnect is the VPN’s next generation
Right now, you can find out for yourself why picking up this tracking blocker/VPN all under one hood is such a plus. Disconnect ...
