Card Holder Data (CHD)/Payment Card Industry (PCI) data includes which of the following data elements?

• A. Primary Account Number (PAN)
• B. Email address
• C. Bank routing number
• D. Card verification value

Answer: (A)

Primary Account Number is the data element that belongs to Card Holder Data (CHD) and PCI data. The PAN is the unique identifier for the card and is central to processing a payment—it's the primary value that routes the transaction through the card networks. CHD typically includes PAN along with other card-related fields like the cardholder name, expiration date, and service code, so PAN is the fundamental element in this dataset. The other options are not card data: an email address is not cardholder data, a bank routing number is banking information not specific to the card, and the card verification value is a sensitive authentication value that PCI DSS requires not to be stored after authorization.