A. INTRODUCTION
1. 'The world's most valuable
resource is no longer oil but data' ran the title of a
leader in The Economist in May 2017, drawing a comparison between
Standard Oil in the early 20th century and the world's most
valuable listed companies today.1 But, even as 'data
as the new oil' has become a trope of the fourth industrial
revolution, it's easy to overdo the parallels: oil is a finite
natural resource whilst data is created by people – "the
world's most renewable resource" in the words of Microsoft
CEO Satya Nadella2 - and oil used by one person
can't be consumed by anyone else, where data can be used time
and again without lessening its value.
2. Data volumes created are doubling
every two years or so. Information and data are also
infinite as expression and communication and as a resource, data
volumes growing exponentially. In the April 2019 edition of its
'Data Age 2025' white paper, research company IDC
estimated that global data volumes will
