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which of the following is not an example of pii

Personally identifiable information (PII) is any data that can be used to identify a specific individual, either directly (on its own) or indirectly (when combined with other data).

What counts as PII

Common examples of PII include:

  • Full name linked to a person (e.g., “Jane Smith” in a customer record).
  • Government ID numbers: Social Security number, passport number, driver’s license number, taxpayer ID.
  • Contact details: personal email address, phone number, home or mailing address.
  • Financial data: bank account numbers, credit or debit card numbers, payment card details.
  • Biometric data: fingerprints, facial recognition templates, retina or iris scans.
  • Medical or health records tied to a person (diagnoses, treatment information).
  • Certain digital identifiers when linkable to a person, such as persistent IP addresses, device IDs, or login credentials.

Any one of these, especially if linked with a name or account, is treated as sensitive in many privacy and security policies.

What is not PII (in most cases)

Data that cannot reasonably be used to identify a specific person, on its own or in typical combinations, is generally considered non‑PII or de‑identified data.

Examples that are usually not PII by themselves:

  • Aggregated statistics, like “20% of users clicked the button,” with no way to trace back to individuals.
  • Generic demographic data without identifiers, such as “there are 5,000 residents in this city” or “average age of users is 32.”
  • Fully anonymized or de‑identified datasets where direct and indirect identifiers have been removed and cannot be re-linked to a person with reasonable effort.
  • Fictional names or obviously fake identities used only for examples or testing, as long as they do not correspond to real individuals.

So, if a question asks “which of the following is not an example of PII,” the correct choice would typically be something like:

  • “The total number of website visitors this month,” or
  • “A summarized statistic (e.g., average session duration) with no user‑level identifiers.”

Those types of values describe behavior or aggregates, but they do not point to any one identifiable person.

Quick rule of thumb

To decide whether something is PII, ask:

  1. Can this information alone identify a person?
  2. Can it reasonably be combined with other available data to identify a person?

If the answer to both is “no,” it is likely not an example of PII for typical privacy and compliance purposes.

Meta description (for SEO) :
Understanding which of the following is not an example of PII is key for privacy compliance. Learn what qualifies as personally identifiable information and what data is generally considered non‑PII in practice.

Bottom note :
Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.