Personally Identifiable Information (PII) refers to pieces of information that, individually or taken together, would be sufficient to locate, contact, or identify a single individual.

PII is linked to specific individuals through direct or indirect identifiers. Direct identifiers enable the identification of an individual without any additional information. Examples of direct identifiers include driver’s license numbers, passport numbers, Social Security numbers, biometric records, or financial account numbers.

Indirect identifiers enable the identification of individuals when coupled with other data. Examples of indirect identifiers include street address without a city, the last four digits of a Social Security number, or birth date.

In pursuit of its business objectives, VantageScore DOES NOT request, receive or archive any PII related to the consumer records used in modeling, research and analysis or other activity. All PII is removed from any data prior to delivery to VantageScore by the credit reporting companies (CRC) or any other third-party data providers – a major differentiator between VantageScore and others in the industry who face data security and privacy challenges because of the PII they collect and store.

VantageScore considers the following to be PII:

• Name: full name, maiden name, mother’s maiden name, or alias
• Personal identification numbers: Social Security number (SSN), passport number, driver’s license number, taxpayer identification number, patient identification number, financial account number, or credit card number
• Personal address information: street address, or email address
• Personal telephone numbers
• Personal characteristics: photographic images, fingerprints, or other biometric data (retina scans, voice signatures, facial geometry)
• Information identifying personally owned property: VIN number or title number
• Technology asset information: Internet Protocol (IP) or Media Access Control (MAC) addresses that consistently link to a particular person

The following examples on their own do not constitute PII as more than one person could share these traits. However, when linked or linkable to one of the above examples, the following could be used to identify a specific person:

• Date of birth
• Place of birth
• Business telephone number
• Business mailing or email address
• Race
• Religion
• Geographical indicators
• Employment information
• Medical information
• Education information
• Financial information

Therefore, care must be given in the use of any information containing the above elements.

Here again, VantageScore does not request, receive or archive personal information such as date and place of birth, race, gender, business contact information, employment, educational or medical information. Further, VantageScore strictly does not include any of these elements of personal information in its modeling, research or analysis. Any geographic identifiers used are at a sufficiently aggregate level (such as zip code or Metropolitan Statistical Area) and are used only in geography-level comparative analysis.