Blog Writing for Grand Technology Solutions, IT/MSP Client, August 2023

We’ve been throwing around a new term a lot lately and had some questions about it. What is “personally identifiable information” (or PPI) and why does it matter to small business owners?

PPI is often “the thing” you’re protecting when it comes to data security. Personally identifiable information is all of the data used to identify someone. It’s kinda like going to the DMV to renew your license. You need five different documents to confirm you are who you say you are (then five more when the DMV says what you brought doesn’t count…)

This data, like Social Security numbers, addresses, phone numbers, and more can be used to validate someone’s identity on the Internet, like when you apply for a credit card or a loan online. Therefore, PPI – when stolen – can also be used to pretend to be someone else, and access accounts or create new ones in that person’s name.

With all that in mind, you can understand why personally identifiable information is so important to protect! For small business owners, PII is typically divided into two types: sensitive PII (like Social Security and medical records) and nonsensitive PII (like someone’s gender or zip code, or other info that’s readily available in a social media profile).

Here are 5 kinds of PII small businesses MUST keep secure:

1. Tax information collected from employees. This includes any information you collected when you hired someone new, like Social Security Numbers, drivers’ license numbers, their mailing address and phone number, even someone’s full name (if they go by a nickname online, for example – their full name is still sensitive PII).

2. Bank information collected from employees and customers. We’re talking account numbers for direct deposit, credit reports (if you collect those for some reason; you do you), credit/debit card numbers, invoicing records – anything that could be used to access a financial account of any kind.

3. Medical records. This generally applies to small family practice medical offices, but if you have access to someone’s medical information for any reason, it counts as sensitive personally identifiable information and must be secured.

4. Contact information. This seems a little roundabout, especially for colleagues or employees whose email addresses and business phone numbers are available on your website. But your team’s cell phone numbers, mailing addresses, and personal email addresses all qualify as PII.

5. Nonsensitive PII. Finally, this includes stuff that is technically already available somewhere else (social media, for example), but it’s still not something you should be chucking in a ZIP file and uploading to the Dark Web. Nonsensitive PII includes things like gender, date of birth, religion, zip code, or information about their spouse or family members. (Like, mom’s maiden name or the name of their first pet… All the delicious trivia tidbits we use for our online security questions!)

Now that you know about PII, how does your data security stack up?

As small business owners, we all need this information come tax time (or, y’know, when we or our employees want to get paid). So it stands to reason that PII is floating around somewhere in your business records! If you’re not sure where your PII is stored – or how many sources of it you have that you’ve forgotten about or, yikes, left in a handwritten Rolodex on your desk – give us a call.

The team at Grand Technology Solutions are foremost experts in cybersecurity for small business. No matter what information you seek to protect, we can help. Give us a call at (904) 606-6011 or email info@helpgts.com to learn more about our data backups, data cleanups, and data protection services. We’ll get that PII in shape in no time!