Nature of Information - How Can You Determine If You Can Ethically Use the Information Found?

How can you determine the nature of the information, that is

Whether it is personal/private or public

How can you determine if you can ethically use the information found?

Determining the nature of information is most a matter of having common sense. The difference between personal, private, and public information often has to do with the accessibility of that information. For example, if something is easily accessible or published by a public institution, it would be reasonable to assume that the information is public. Something that had to be hunted for or obtained using unethical methods is probably private and not intended for public viewing or external use.

There is a lot of personal information that we think of as private, but in reality is a part of public record and available to anyone on the internet requesting the data. Some examples might be your email, your age, your political party registration, and your address. In addition, a lot of us unintentionally click the rights to our information away while trying to skip through a website’s terms and conditions. This information, having technically been approved by us for public use, can be ethically used by anyone who chooses to view it.

Personal information is also defined in the context of the law. Personally Identifiable Information or PII is defined by Investopedia as, “... information that, when used alone or with other relevant data, can identify an individual. PII may contain direct identifiers (e.g. passport information) that can identify a person uniquely, or quasi-identifiers (e.g. race) that can be combined with other quasi-identifiers (e.g. date of birth) to successfully recognize an