Every day, we create 2.5 quintillion bytes of data –
that's a huge number, 18 zeros. This data comes from
everywhere: sensors used to gather information about the
performance of your car, posts to social media sites, digital
pictures and videos, shopping transaction records, and cell phone
GPS signals to name a few.
There is even a category of data called metadata, which is
basically data about data. For example, information about a
particular music file, like the name of the artist, album and song
title, or the precise time and location that a person made a call
from their mobile phone.
While most businesses understand that they have obligations
under the Privacy Act1 in respect of people's names
and other contact details, many have not considered what
obligations they might have under the Privacy Act in respect of any
metadata collected.
