What is personal data?

Personal data means any information relating to a living individual who can be identified, directly or indirectly, by an identifier such as a name, an identification number, location data, an online identifier or by factors specific to the physical, physiological, genetic, mental, economic, cultural or social identity of that person.

If an individual cannot be identified by the information, then it is not personal data and is therefore not covered by the law.

Personal data that has been pseudonymised – e.g. key-coded – can fall within the scope of the GDPR depending on how difficult it is to attribute the pseudonym to a particular individual.