Training: What is Personal Data?

What the training consists of

1. 

   1. Identifying personal data

   1:22

   The first lesson opens an ordinary inbox and sent folder and shows that the emails and their attachments carry personal data from every part of the job. It sets out why each person needs to know what counts as personal data.

2. 

   2. Definition of personal data

   1:36

   Colleagues then learn what makes information personal data. It can identify someone directly, as a full name does, or indirectly, by setting them apart from others in a given context, and the facts recorded about them count too.

Why it matters

The GDPR regulates how personal data is processed, so an organisation has to know when it is processing it. That is only possible if its employees recognise personal data when they see it.

What your colleagues learn

• Customers, partners and colleagues all turn up in one inbox. An invoice with a customer’s payment details, the minutes of a meeting with partners and a colleague’s performance evaluation can sit side by side.
• A single number can identify a person directly. A passport number, a driver’s licence number or an employee ID is personal data just as a full name is, because each one belongs to one specific individual.
• Context can turn a description into personal data. On its own, a description of someone with brown hair in a ponytail and an orange top identifies nobody, but next to a group photo it picks out one of the people in it.
• Information stored with an ID number is about that person too. The benefits recorded against a social security number, or the date of the holder’s last appointment, are personal data because they describe the person the number identifies.