What is PII and why should I care? Jun 10

PII or personal identifiable information, is data that directly identifies an individual such as name, social security number, telephone number, address, or email address.  It also includes indirect identification which may identify an individual in conjunction with other information.  For example, gender, race, birth date or geographic indicators are all examples of indirect identification.

This information, when put in the hands of bad actors, can result in cyber security breaches or other types of fraud such as fraudulent withdrawals from retirement plans.

As an employer, you have access to PII and must take care in disseminating this data to others.   Atlantic Pension requires all transfers of PII to be through secured email or secured website uploads.   For example, when providing us with your annual census, you may upload the data to the secure Plan Sponsor Website, use a secure encrypted email or request a link from your plan administrator for a secure encrypted email.

Keeping PII secure is a job we all must do!