Personaldata

Personal data, or personal information, is any information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person. This includes direct identifiers such as name, address, or ID numbers, and indirect data like online identifiers or location data, especially when combined with other information. Health, biometric, and genetic data are often treated as particularly sensitive and subject to stricter safeguards.

In many jurisdictions, laws regulate the collection, use, and sharing of personal data. In the European Union, the General Data Protection Regulation sets core principles: lawfulness, fairness and transparency; purpose limitation; data minimization; accuracy; storage limitation; integrity and confidentiality; and accountability. Data subjects have rights to access, rectify, erase, restrict processing, data portability, object, and, in some cases, withdraw consent. Other regions implement parallel frameworks, such as the California Consumer Privacy Act (and CPRA), Brazil’s LGPD, and Canada’s PIPEDA, among others.

A data controller determines purposes and means of processing; a data processor handles data on the controller’s behalf. Processing must have a lawful basis, such as consent, performance of a contract, legal obligation, vital interests, public task, or legitimate interests. Organizations should implement privacy by design, minimize data collection, and apply security measures like encryption, access controls, and regular audits. Data protection impact assessments are used for higher-risk processing.

Global transfers may require safeguards, and breach notification is common practice. De-identification and anonymization can reduce identifiability but do not always eliminate it. Overall, personal data protection seeks to balance individual privacy with legitimate data processing, shaping policies, compliance programs, and technology design.