PII 2 . 0 : Privacy and a New Approach to Personal Information

BY PAUL M. SCHWARTZ AND DANIEL J. SOLOVE P ersonally Identifiable Information (PII) is one of the most central concepts in privacy regulation. It defines the scope and boundaries of a large range of privacy statutes and regulations. Numerous federal statutes turn on this distinction. Similarly, many state statutes also rely on PII as a jurisdictional trigger. These laws all share the same basic assumption—that in the absence of PII, there is no privacy harm. Thus, privacy regulation focuses on the collection, use, and disclosure of PII, and leaves non-PII unregulated.