Grrr -- this is one word that really bugs me (except when it's used to deliberately distinguish an individual from a collective body). Why not "person"? Why not "someone"? "Individual" just seems like a bureaucratese or academese synonym for these simpler terms; it makes the writing seem more formal and stilted with no countervailing increase in precision.

Again, if you want to distinguish individuals from corporations, or want to discuss individual rights as a way of stressing their protecting individuals from the state, that's fine. But if in context "individual" simply means "person," it seems to me that "person" is the much better term.