(PII) Personally Identifiable Information
About this video
Sal explains personally identifiable information (PII), such as your Social Security Number, birthday, email or phone number, and why you should limit who has it. People with your PII can expose your privacy, track you, or steal your identity, so when a service asks for PII you should ask why, what they'll do with it, and whether you really need that service.
You'll be able to
- define PII and give examples of direct and indirect PII.
- describe risks of sharing PII, including identity theft.
- decide what questions to ask before giving my PII to a service.
Key words
- personally identifiable information (PII)
- Information that can identify you, such as your Social Security Number, name, birthday or address.
- identity theft
- When someone uses your personal information to pretend to be you, for example to take money or open credit in your name.
- biometrics
- Physical traits used to identify you, like fingerprints or your face.
- indirect PII
- Details like your birthday, address or phone number that can be combined to identify you.
Transcript
- Hi everyone. Sal Khan here from Khan academy. My Social Security Number is 857,
- 32 - 5567. No, it's not. I wouldn't tell you my Social Security Number like that. And that's because it is personally identifiable information, or PII. And there's a reason why you want to keep that to yourself, or at least limit who has access to PII. Because if someone has access, they can expose your privacy, tell the world where you live, they could track you and they could tell the world what you've been up to, maybe when you should be working what websites you're visiting, or, even worse, potentially, they could steal your identity, take money out of your bank account, take a credit card in your name, do some other form of identity theft that could be embarrassing, or super costly.
So, if you have some type of a service, either online or otherwise, that's asking for something like your Social Security Number, or your birthday, which might be a little bit more indirect, or your email address, or your phone number, you might ask why. Sometimes there's a legitimate reason why they need to know these things but many times, I'd argue even most of the time, there might not be a legitimate reason.
And so you need to ask yourself, well what are they going to do with it? And if you don't feel comfortable giving that information, ask yourself, do you really need that service? So think seriously about your PII. Unfortunately, bad actors on the Internet are coming up with new ways of leveraging both direct PII, personally identifiable information like Social Security Numbers, even biometrics, even your name, and indirect measures, or indirect pieces of PII, like your birthday, or your address, or your email address, or your phone number, that can be put together to do shady things with your identity.
So be very careful.
Video © Khan Academy, used under CC BY-NC-SA. Watch on Khan Academy. Puzzicle is not affiliated with Khan Academy.