PII covers information that identifies people, making its collection, storage, and disclosure central to privacy protection and breach response.
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Background for this topic.
PII (personally identifiable information) is information that identifies a person directly or can do so when combined with other data. Direct identifiers include names, government identification numbers, passport details, and email addresses; indirect identifiers can include birth dates, precise location, or unique account attributes. The term is used broadly in security, but its legal scope varies: laws and regulations may use different definitions, such as “personal data” under the GDPR or protected health information under HIPAA.
PII is a high-value target because unauthorized access or disclosure can enable identity fraud, targeted phishing, or privacy harm. It may be exposed through compromised applications, cloud storage, logs, endpoints, or third parties. Practitioners should inventory and classify it, collect and retain only what is needed, restrict access, and protect it with encryption or tokenization where appropriate. Monitoring and tested procedures for investigating exposure are important, while retention, deletion, and notification duties depend on the applicable jurisdiction and sector.
Weekly headline count for the current query.
German discount supermarket chain Lidl notified customers in Germany, Belgium, and the Netherlands that attackers stole their personal information in a breach at a service provider. [...]
WhatsApp is finally allowing users to reserve usernames, a privacy feature that lets them hide their phone numbers from people not in their contact list. [...]
The ShinyHunters extortion gang stole personal information from more than 137,000 school staff accounts in a Salesforce data theft attack that targeted the widely used Infinite Campus K-12 student information system in March. [...]
The Personal Information Protection Commission (PIPC), South Korea's data protection regulator, has fined e-commerce giant Coupang a record 624.6 billion won (roughly $409 million) following a massive data breach affecting more than 37 million customers [...]
California Attorney General Rob Bonta filed a lawsuit against 23andMe, now Chrome Holding Co., over the company's failure to protect sensitive customer genetic and personal information. [...]
A North Carolina man was sentenced to more than 10 years in prison for selling the personal information of over 7 million elderly Americans to Jamaican scammers. [...]
The ShinyHunters extortion gang stole personal information from 4.9 million accounts after hacking the U.S. telecom giant Charter Communications in early April, according to data breach notification service Have I Been Pwned. [...]
The ShinyHunters extortion gang stole the personal information of over 183,000 people after hacking the systems of convenience store chain giant 7-Eleven in April, according to data breach notification service Have I Been Pwned. [...]
The Information Commissioner's Office has fined South Staffordshire Water Plc and parent company South Staffordshire Plc £963,900 ($1.3 million) over a cyberattack that exposed the personal data of 663,887 customers and employees. [...]
Škoda Auto, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Volkswagen Group, has disclosed a data breach after attackers hacked its online shop and stole the personal information of an undisclosed number of customers. [...]
Hackers who gained access to the databases of Spanish fast-fashion retailer Zara stole data belonging to more than 197,000 customers, according to data breach notification service Have I Been Pwned. [...]
The ShinyHunters extortion gang stole personal information belonging to over 119,000 people after hacking the Vimeo online video platform in April, according to data breach notification service Have I Been Pwned. [...]
The ShinyHunters extortion group stole the personal information of 5.5 million individuals after breaching the systems of home security giant ADT earlier this month, according to data breach notification service Have I Been Pwned. [...]
Dutch cosmetics giant Rituals disclosed a data breach after attackers stole the personal information of an undisclosed number of customers from its "My Rituals" membership database. [...]
Eurail B.V., a European travel operator that provides digital passes covering 33 national railways, says attackers stole the personal information of over 300,000 individuals in a December 2025 data breach. [...]
Popular anime streaming platform Crunchyroll is investigating a breach after hackers claimed to have stolen personal information for approximately 6.8 million people. [...]
A new exploit kit for iOS devices and delivery framework dubbed "Darksword" has been used to steal a wide range of personal information, including data from cryptocurrency wallet app. [...]
Cloud Imperium Games (CIG), the game developer behind Star Citizen and Squadron 42, says attackers breached systems containing some users' personal information in January. [...]
DIY store chain ManoMano is notifying customers of a data breach personal data, which was caused by hackers compromising a third-party service provider. [...]
The ShinyHunters extortion group has published personal information in more than 12 million records allegedly stolen from CarGurus, a U.S.-based digital auto platform. [...]