Personally Identifiable Information (PII) | Internet safety | Khan Academy

Hi everyone, Sal Khan here from Khan Academy. My social security number is eight five seven three two five five six seven. No, it's not! I wouldn't tell you my social security number like that, and that's because it is personally identifiable information, or PII.

There's a reason why you want to keep that to yourself, or at least limit who has access to PII. If someone has access, they can expose your privacy, tell the world where you live, track you, and they could tell the world what you've been up to. Maybe when you should be working, what websites you're visiting, or even worse, potentially they could steal your identity.

They could take money out of your bank account, take a credit card in your name, do some other form of identity theft that could be embarrassing or super costly. So, if you have some type of service, either online or otherwise, that's asking for something like your social security number or your birthday, which might be a little bit more indirect, or your email address, or your phone number, you might ask why.

Sometimes, there's a legitimate reason why they need to know these things, but many times, I'd argue even most of the time, there might not be a legitimate reason. You need to ask yourself, well, what are they going to do with it? And if you don't feel comfortable giving that information, ask yourself, do you really need that service?

So, think seriously about your PII. Unfortunately, bad actors on the internet are coming up with new ways of leveraging both direct PII, personally identifiable information, like social security numbers, even biometrics, even your name, and indirect measures or indirect pieces of PII, like your birthday, your address, your email address, or your phone number.

These can be put together to do shady things with your identity, so be very careful.