Which type of information is primarily protected by data protection legislation?

• A. Public records
• B. Personal data
• C. Trade secrets
• D. Business strategies

Answer: (B)

Protection of personal data is the focus. Data protection legislation is designed to safeguard information that relates to identifiable individuals, covering how this data is collected, stored, used, shared, and eventually erased. It aims to give people control over their own information and to ensure privacy is respected through principles like lawfulness, purpose limitation, data minimization, and security. Public records are often governed by openness or access laws rather than privacy-specific protections, and trade secrets or business strategies fall under confidentiality and intellectual property rules rather than data protection. So the information primarily protected is personal data.