Personally Identifiable Information
PII.
Any information that can identify a specific individual, either alone (full name, government ID) or combined with other data (email + birthday + zip code).
The PII inventory determines the compliance perimeter. A CIAM that holds only email plus auth credentials has a small PII footprint and a small compliance surface. A CIAM that holds birthdate, address, phone number, and demographic fields has a meaningfully larger surface. Schema minimization is the cheapest compliance strategy.
Common questions
What counts as PII?
Is an email address PII?
How should I store PII?