Identifiable private information is best described as which of the following?

Identifiable private information is best described as which of the following?

• A. Publicly available data about a person.
• B. Information that cannot be traced to a person.
• C. Information about an individual that can be linked to that person and is not publicly available.
• D. Anonymous data with no identifiers.

Answer: (C)

Identifiable private information means data about a person that could be connected to that person and isn’t publicly available. This means there are enough details—direct identifiers like name or medical record number, or combinations of information such as age, location, and dates—that someone could link the data back to the individual. Because it isn’t in the public domain, handling it requires protections to prevent disclosure or misuse. That’s why the description “information about an individual that can be linked to that person and is not publicly available” fits best. Publicly available data isn’t private, so it doesn’t meet the “private” part. Information that cannot be traced to a person isn’t identifiable, and anonymous data has no identifiers at all, so neither describes identifiable private information.

Identifiable private information means data about a person that could be connected to that person and isn’t publicly available. This means there are enough details—direct identifiers like name or medical record number, or combinations of information such as age, location, and dates—that someone could link the data back to the individual. Because it isn’t in the public domain, handling it requires protections to prevent disclosure or misuse. That’s why the description “information about an individual that can be linked to that person and is not publicly available” fits best.

Publicly available data isn’t private, so it doesn’t meet the “private” part. Information that cannot be traced to a person isn’t identifiable, and anonymous data has no identifiers at all, so neither describes identifiable private information.