The types of special category data are:

-Racial or ethnic origin

-Political opinions

-Religious or philosophical beliefs

-Membership of a trade union

-Genetic data

-Biometric data, like fingerprints, which are used to identify people

-Health data (whether mental or physical)

-Data about someone’s sex life

-Data about someone’s sexual orientation

Some subjects might not mind some of their special category data being public. For instance, many people write about their political beliefs on social media.

Even so, these nine types of data must be treated with extra care. The GDPR is more restrictive on how this information is gathered.