Personally identifiable information and marketing: between personalization and privacy
Posted: Wed Dec 04, 2024 5:45 am
Since the dawn of direct marketing strategies, think for example of catalogs sent by mail or the first telemarketing activities, personally identifiable information , more properly known as PII ( Personally Identifiable Information ), has been considered by brands and companies as the basis on which to build their strategy.
For decades, marketers and advertisers have tried to reach and engage users with tracking tools and systems based on third-party cookies in order to personalize their browsing and purchasing experience.
But the context has evolved again and that data and information useful for identifying an individual and provided by the user himself, have taken on a new centrality.
More generally, we speak of first and zero party data, of which personally identifiable information still represents a significant segment.
But which data and information can be considered personally identifiable? Let's clarify.
Personally identifiable list of albania consumer email information: what data to consider and how to categorize it?
As partially anticipated, the term PII ( Personally Identifiable Information ) refers to all that information that , if used alone or combined with other data, can allow a single individual to be clearly and uniquely identified .
This category therefore includes, for example, name, surname, telephone number and email, but also information relating to race, religious beliefs, or date of birth.

Types of personally identifiable information
In particular, data such as name, surname, email or telephone number, as can be easily deduced, allow the individual person to be identified directly, while other information can be traced back to a specific individual only if combined with the first.
Personally identifiable information can thus be distinguished between direct and indirect information . However, this distinction is not the only one that can be implemented: PII can also be further divided into sensitive and non-sensitive information . Sensitive information is defined as all information that directly identifies an individual and can cause significant damage in the event of theft or loss. Examples include social security data, financial information, bank account numbers and credit card numbers. On the other hand, non-sensitive data include name and surname, telephone number, date and place of birth, email address or postal address, race, religion, or data that in most cases are also present in publicly accessible documents and archives.
For decades, marketers and advertisers have tried to reach and engage users with tracking tools and systems based on third-party cookies in order to personalize their browsing and purchasing experience.
But the context has evolved again and that data and information useful for identifying an individual and provided by the user himself, have taken on a new centrality.
More generally, we speak of first and zero party data, of which personally identifiable information still represents a significant segment.
But which data and information can be considered personally identifiable? Let's clarify.
Personally identifiable list of albania consumer email information: what data to consider and how to categorize it?
As partially anticipated, the term PII ( Personally Identifiable Information ) refers to all that information that , if used alone or combined with other data, can allow a single individual to be clearly and uniquely identified .
This category therefore includes, for example, name, surname, telephone number and email, but also information relating to race, religious beliefs, or date of birth.

Types of personally identifiable information
In particular, data such as name, surname, email or telephone number, as can be easily deduced, allow the individual person to be identified directly, while other information can be traced back to a specific individual only if combined with the first.
Personally identifiable information can thus be distinguished between direct and indirect information . However, this distinction is not the only one that can be implemented: PII can also be further divided into sensitive and non-sensitive information . Sensitive information is defined as all information that directly identifies an individual and can cause significant damage in the event of theft or loss. Examples include social security data, financial information, bank account numbers and credit card numbers. On the other hand, non-sensitive data include name and surname, telephone number, date and place of birth, email address or postal address, race, religion, or data that in most cases are also present in publicly accessible documents and archives.