Why this matters
Your name, your ID number, a photo of your face: these belong to you. Knowing what counts as personal information, and which rights protect it, lets you handle your own data (and other people's) without causing harm or breaking the law.
The idea
Personal information is any data about a living individual who can be identified, either by itself or when combined with other data. The four basic items are name, address, date of birth, and gender. Numbers like a passport, driving licence, or national ID are personal identification codes. Sensitive details (race, beliefs, health, criminal record) are special care-required information and need extra protection.
A few consequences fall out of this:
- A deceased person's data is not "personal information" in this legal sense.
- A number that looks like "just digits" still counts, because it can identify someone when combined with other data.
- The Act on the Protection of Personal Information says you generally can't give someone's data to a third party without their consent.
Related rights: the right to privacy (keep private matters private), image rights (no photographing/using your appearance without permission), and publicity rights (the economic value in a celebrity's likeness).
Picture it
flowchart TD
A[Some data about a person] --> B{Is the person living?}
B -- No --> X[Not personal information]
B -- Yes --> C{Can it identify them, alone or combined with other data?}
C -- No --> X
C -- Yes --> D[Personal information: handle with consent and care]Worked example
A friend asks you to post a group photo and tag everyone. Two rights are in play: posting faces without permission can breach image rights, and the tags reveal personal information. So you ask each person first. Compare: a passport number is just digits, yet it is personal information because it pinpoints one individual. Treat it as carefully as a name.
Your turn
Try the practice questions: decide what counts as personal information, name the four basic items, and tell privacy, image, and publicity rights apart.
Recap
- Personal information identifies a living person, directly or in combination.
- Four basic items: name, address, date of birth, gender.
- Privacy protects secrets, image rights protect your appearance, publicity rights protect a celebrity's commercial likeness.