Personal Data (PII)
1 min read · Reviewed 17 Oct 2026
In short
Information that identifies a living person — and must not be pasted casually.
In plain English
Names, addresses, phone numbers, email addresses, dates of birth, health details, anything that identifies someone. Under UK and EU law it carries obligations regardless of how convenient the tool is.
A real example
Pasting a client's full complaint email into a free chatbot to draft a reply sends their personal data to a third party — possibly to be retained, possibly used for training.
Why it matters
This is the most common way small teams get into trouble with AI. Strip identifying details, or use a tool whose terms guarantee your data is not retained or trained on.
