Data Element Properties Help

This panel is used to set properties for a data element that you created or to view the properties of the base data elements or categories.

Category

Data categories give users and user agents additional hints about the type of information that is collected at the Web site. See planning for more information about data categories.

If you are creating a data element, you can set the category for the data element or allow the category to be set when the data is declared as a policy element .

Physical contact information
Information that allows an individual to be contacted or located in the physical world, such as a phone number or address.
Online contact information
Information that allows an individual to be contacted or located on the Internet (for example, an email address). Often, this information is independent of the specific computer used to access the network. (See the category, Computer Information) .
Unique identifiers
Nonfinancial identifiers issued for purposes of consistently identifying the individual, such as a unique user identifier issued for the Web site. This category does not include government-issued identifiers, such as a Social Security or driver's license number.
Financial account identifiers
Information about an individual's finances including account status and activity information such as account balance, payment or overdraft history, and information about an individual's purchase or use of financial instruments including credit or debit card information. Information about a discrete purchase by an individual, as described in Purchase Information, alone does not come under the definition of financial information.
Computer Information
Information about the computer system that the individual is using to access the network, such as the IP address, domain name, browser type, software configuration, or operating system. When an IP address is stored in a log file with information related to browsing activity, both the computer category and the navigation category should be used.
Navigation and click-stream data
Data passively generated by browsing the Web site, such as which pages are visited, and how long users stay on each page. When an IP address is stored in a log file with information related to browsing activity, both the computer category and the navigation category should be used.
Interactive data
Data actively generated from or reflecting explicit interactions with a service provider through its site , such as queries to a search engine, logs of account activity, or purchases made at the site. This kind of data is actively solicited to provide some useful service at a site beyond browsing.
Preference data
Data about an individual's likes and dislikes; such as favorite color or musical tastes.
Demographic and socioeconomic data
Data about an individual's characteristics, such as gender, age, and income.
Content
The words and expressions contained in the body of a communication, such as the text of email, bulletin board postings, or chat room communications. This category includes any information exchanged on a site for the purposes of communication.
Health information
Information about an individual's physical or mental health, sexual orientation, use or inquiry into health care services or products, and purchase of health care services or products.
Purchase information
Information actively generated by the purchase of a product or service, including information about the method of payment.
State-management information
Mechanisms for maintaining a stateful session with a user or automatically identifying users whom have visited a particular site or accessed particular content previously, such as HTTP cookies.
Political information
Membership in or affiliation with groups such as religious organizations, trade unions, professional associations, or political parties.
Current location
Information that can be used to identify an individual's current physical location and track them as their location changes, such as GPS position data. The distinction between this category and the location information in physical contact information is that physical contact information is static, such as a shipping address, while the current location is dynamic, such as the location of the user at a given point in time.
Government-issued identifier
Identifiers issued by a government, such as a Social Security or driver's license number.
Other
Data that cannot be described by the base data categories. Provide an explanation of the new data category in the text field provided. This category is discouraged because it creates a unique data category that is not likely to be interpreted by user agents.