Personally Identifiable Information (PII)

What is PII?

PII or Personally Identifiable Information is a legal term related to information security. PII is information that can be used by organizations on its own or with other information to identify, contact, or locate a user or person of interest. The concept of the PII determines which data to store, process, manage and display that identifies users.

The following information qualifies as PII, as they uniquely identify a user - full name (if uncommon), email id, mobile number ID number, address, passport details, login name or screen name, etc.

There are quasi-identifiers that when used with other information, can be used to identify a user. For example, ZIP code, date of birth, and gender can uniquely identify a person 87% of the time in the US, according to a US governmental study. Pseudo identifiers may or may not be considered PII under the law of the land.

Handling PII in MoEngage

At MoEngage, there are three options available for handling PII data. These options cater to different business and operational requirements. You can select the most suitable approach for your needs:

Sending PII to MoEngage

If you choose to send PII to MoEngage, you can utilize the following functionalities to safeguard the data:

PII Masking

MoEngage allows you to designate specific attributes as PII and then mask them to ensure security. Only administrators have access to view and download this data. For more information on PII Masking, click here.

PII Data Encryption

MoEngage provides the capability to encrypt PII data stored within its systems. Any user or event attributes marked as PII can be encrypted. By default, encrypted attributes also have masking enabled. These attributes are not visible or downloadable from the MoEngage dashboard. To learn more about PII Data Encryption, click here.

Not Sending PII to MoEngage

If you decide not to send PII to MoEngage, you can leverage the following functionality to enable your workflows:

PII Tokenized Sending

To ensure complete user anonymity, MoEngage supports tokenized sending. This approach fetches PII data at runtime, eliminating the need to store it within MoEngage. For further details on PII Tokenized Sending, click here.