What Is Personal Business Information?

As a company you are responsible for the personal data of your customers and staff. In law, you are www.bizinfoportal.co.uk/2021/04/08/how-to-implement-your-business-growth-strategy/ legally required to safeguard this information and ensure that it is handled in a safe manner. However, it’s not always easy to determine what constitutes personal information.

It is essential to recognize that the definition of personal data varies by country and legal jurisdiction. It generally refers to any information that identifies an individual. This includes information like the person’s email address or phone number, but it includes any other information that could be associated with an individual, thereby identifying them. For example, their date of birth or maiden name of their mother biometric data, information about visas and passports, credit card details, as well as other sensitive data related to employment (e.g. performance ratings and discipline records).

The information must be able to be identified by others. If it is difficult for anyone to identify the information then it isn’t considered to be personal. This is called the “practicability test”.

The final step in determining whether something is personal is to ensure that it can be related to a living, identifiable person. This excludes information that is business-related, like invoices or orders.

If sensitive personal data is lost, stolen, or disclosed in any other manner without authorization, it can be very harmful. It is vital to train employees on the importance of safeguarding sensitive PII. It is also important to take steps to protect the information even when it’s not in use, such as by logging off computers unsupervised and destroying paper records. It is crucial to check regularly the PII within your system and to restrict access to those with a business reason to do this.