Privacy risk is the potential loss of control over personal information. Personally identifiable information, or PII, is “any information about an individual maintained by an agency, including
1:- any information that can be used to distinguish or trace an individual’s identity, such as name, social security number, date and place of birth, mother’s maiden name, or biometric records; and
2:- any other information that is linked or linkable to an individual, such as medical, educational, financial, and employment information.”
So, for example, a user’s IP address is not classified as PII on its own, but is considered linked PII.