# Personal data

> Any information that can identify a living person, directly or combined with other data, from a name or email to a location or ID number.

**Category:** Safety

**Personal data is anything that can identify a person.** An obvious case is a name, email, phone number, or address; a subtler one is data that identifies someone when combined, like a job title plus a company plus a city. Under [GDPR](/glossary#gdpr) it gets special protection.

For AI, the rule of thumb is simple: **if a line would identify a real person, treat it as personal data** and think before you paste it into a tool. When you only need the shape of the data, not the people, strip the identifiers first ([anonymisation](/glossary#anonymisation)).

## At work

A spreadsheet of 'customer, email, last order' is full of personal data. If you just need buying patterns, remove the names and emails first.

## Often confused with

Only sensitive data like health or finance. Personal data is broader: even a name or email on its own counts.

## Related terms

- GDPR
- Anonymisation
- Enterprise tier

## See it in a lesson

[AI at work: safety and privacy](/en/learn/foundations/ai-at-work-safety-and-privacy)

## Further reading

- [Personal data (Wikipedia)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_data): What counts as personal data, with examples.
- [Data protection explained (European Commission)](https://commission.europa.eu/law/law-topic/data-protection/data-protection-explained_en): The EU's own definition and rules.
- [What is GDPR? (GDPR.eu)](https://gdpr.eu/what-is-gdpr/): How personal data is protected in practice.

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Last updated: 24/07/2026  
Source: Rollo Academy glossary