What is Privacy?

When we refer to “privacy” we mean data privacy or data protection. This concept concerns the protection of personal information of individuals, meaning physical persons (also referred to as natural persons).

What is personal information?

Personal information (or personal data) includes any information that can identify an individual (meaning a physical person also referred to as a natural person).

Broad Definition

Note that this term can be defined very broadly:

information that directly or clearly identifies a person often by itself, or
other information that more indirectly identifies a person or can identify a person combined with other information.

Examples

Information that directly identifies a person:

names, addresses, email addresses, phone numbers or more sensitive information such as date of birth, driver’s license, social security number or national id, passport number.

Information that indirectly (or combined with other information) can identify a person:

location data, online identifiers/cookies, or other factors.

“Personal Information” or “Personal Data” as a legal definition

Although many of the same or similar types of information may be considered personal information, there are specific legal definitions that vary as defined under different laws in different states, countries and regions.

These are examples of two of the most commonly known definitions:

In the US under the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), personal information includes “any data that identifies, relates to, or could reasonably be linked to you or your household, directly or indirectly.”
In the EU under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), personal data includes “any information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person (...) one who can be identified, directly or indirectly.”