When is it appropriate to send Personally Identifiable Information (PII) over email?

Sending Personally Identifiable Information (PII) over email is highly sensitive and often discouraged due to privacy and security concerns. However, when the information is encrypted and sent as an attachment, it significantly enhances security by ensuring that the data is protected from unauthorized access during transmission. Encryption encodes the information, making it unreadable to anyone who does not have the proper decryption key, thereby safeguarding the PII from potential breaches or interceptions.

Other circumstances for sending PII, such as simply responding to a request from the recipient, relying on the unavailability of other communication methods, or as a follow-up to a previous discussion, do not inherently provide sufficient safeguards for the sensitive nature of PII. Each of these scenarios does not address the critical need for data protection in communication, which is why encryption is vital when transmitting such information via email. In summary, only encrypted emails ensure a necessary layer of security when handling PII, making that scenario the only appropriate situation among the choices provided.