Standard contract term - what does it mean?

[northernladuk]

Context is everything here. Is personal data stuff that you have on their drives that's not work related or is personal data mean its data about people? No idea what you do or trying to do to provide any context.

Why are you so hung up on knowing this. If it's important then get a solicitor to explain it. I very much doubt a bunch of contractors with zero knowledge of what you do is going to help you with a legal statement.

[interestedparty]

OK, let’s go back and try again:
What exactly are you offering your client that involves customer data? Are you providing storage, are you providing database software, what is it you are providing?
You seem obsessed with “it’s not my fault it’s been like this for years” and “what is customer/personal data”
What are you trying to sell?

Our clients pay us for our software (developed in house) which will be used to store and process their customer data, so will constitute "customer" data such as monetary value, frequency of their custom, etc., but also their personal details (name, address, mobile, email). I'm not remotely trying to suggest it was not my fault, that's irrelevant, that piece of information was purely to stress that the term was not written to order and so we (including me, as suggested by the word) wouldn't have had input to it. So, to put it simply, my only outstanding question is to clarify the distinction between customer and personal data within the context I have given. I can easily deal with my client query, it's my quest for clarity that I'm struggling to get a definitive answer to, and yes, I appreciate everything is within a given context.

[interestedparty]

Our clients pay us for our software (developed in house) which will be used to store and process their customer data, so will constitute "customer" data such as monetary value, frequency of their custom, etc., but also their personal details (name, address, mobile, email). I'm not remotely trying to suggest it was or was not my fault, that's irrelevant, that piece of information was purely to stress that the term was not written to order, it was off the shelf, and so we (including me, as suggested by the word) wouldn't have had input to it. So, to put it simply, my only outstanding question is to clarify the distinction between customer and personal data within the context I have given. I can easily deal with my client query, it's my quest for clarity that I'm struggling to get a definitive answer to, and yes, I appreciate everything is within a given context.

It may not be logical to think that contractors would know the answer to this, although we probably all work with customers, and personal data at times. It's just curiosity (that killed the cat). I'll close this topic now, and thanks for all the responses, even the supercilious ones ;-)