Disruptive ProactivityDatabases are lovely things. Mostly.
They can store and process all of the data that you throw at them, keep it around forever, in a scalable, searchable form. Databases are a fundamental part of modern operations and delivery of almost everything that involves more than a few people. It has become effectively free to maintain data, in a way that can be reused, probably forever.
Wearing a privacy perspective hat, there seem to be a few problems with that. The idea of digital tattoos, that you acquire once and can never undo is not a new principle. The capabilities of states and organisations to maintain these structures, on everyone, for ever, is growing, and the processing power to interrogate them in useful time now exists.
After all, Oracle started as a project for the CIA.
The multiple levels of outsourcing, and specialisation means a large bureaucratic organisation (public, or commercial) will have little idea of what data it owns. How many times have you contacted such an organisation, only to have to give a set of details that they already have somewhere, but can’t find?
The organisation has no incentive to save your time by working out what data it has, and how to use it.
That causes undue hassle for citizens, and causes large technology providers to be able to make large profits from minor system changes.
What can be done about that?