Your 'digital shadow' now exceeds data you create

For the first time, the amount of digital information generated by others about the average person on a daily basis has surpassed the volume of information that individuals actively create themselves.A white paper entitled "The Diverse and Exploding Digital Universe," based on a survey by International Data Corporation which was sponsored by EMC Corporation, examines how society and the digital universe interact with one another. It finds that your "digital shadow," including web "footprints", surveillance video and records in databases now exceeds the volume of personal digital information people keep.The IDC report addresses how individuals actively participate in contributing to the digital universe - leaving a digital footprint as Internet and social network users, email use, through the use of mobile phones, digital cameras and credit cards.It refers to the information created about individuals as their "digital shadow" - highlighting the fast-growing passive contributions that individuals make to the digital universe - but discovered that only about half of a person's digital footprint was related to their individual actions such as taking pictures, sending emails, or digital voice calls.According to John Gantz, IDC's chief research officer and senior vice-president "the other half is what we call the 'digital shadow' - information about you - names in financial records, names on mailing lists, web surfing histories or images taken of you by security cameras in airports or urban centres."For the first time your digital shadow is larger than the digital information you actively create about yourself."Enterprise IT organisations that gather the information comprising our digital shadows have a tremendous responsibility - in many cases mandated by law - for the security, privacy protection, reliability and legal compliance of this information, the IDC report said."Society is already feeling the early effects of the world's digital information explosion. Organisations need to plan for the limitless opportunities to use information in new ways and for the challenges of information governance," said Joe Tucci, EMC chairman, president and CEO. "As people's digital footprints continue growing, so too will the responsibility of organisations for the privacy, protection, availability and reliability of that information. The burden is on IT departments within organisations to address the risks and compliance rules around information misuse, data leakage and safeguarding against security breaches."Due to its vast size and rapid expansion, both consumers and businesses experience the impact of the digital universe in many profound ways.IDC reports the information explosion creates new complexity for IT organisations charged with managing digital information that is rapidly growing in size and becoming more diverse. Consumers will also struggle with the growth of their own digital information as they attempt to figure out what to do with all the data they're creating, the white paper predicts.The research also shows that the "digital universe" is bigger and is growing more rapidly than originally estimated as a result of accelerated growth in worldwide shipments of digital cameras, digital surveillance cameras and digital televisions as well as from a better understanding of information replication trends.The digital universe in 2007 was equal to almost 45GB of digital information for every person on earth. Other fast-growing corners of the digital universe include those related to Internet access in emerging countries, sensor-based applications, data centres supporting "cloud computing" and social networks comprised of digital content created by many millions of online users.Among the highlights in the new findings, published earlier this month, were:
- At 281 billion gigabytes (281 exabytes), the digital universe in 2007 was 10 per cent bigger than originally estimated.
- With a compound annual growth rate of almost 60 per cent, the digital universe is growing faster and is projected to be nearly 1.8 zettabytes (1,800 exabytes) in 2011, a 10-fold increase over the next five years.
Other key findings were:
- The "Visual" Universe - the information explosion - at least in raw gigabytes - is predominantly visual: Images, camcorder clips, digital TV signals and surveillance streams.
- Enterprise Responsibility - The picture related to the source and governance of digital information remains intact: Approximately 70 per cent of the digital universe is created by individuals, yet enterprises are responsible for the security, privacy, reliability, and compliance of 85 per cent.
- Digital Diversity - Because of the growth of VoIP, sensors, and RFID, the number of electronic information "containers" - files, images, packets, tag contents - is growing 50 per cent faster than the number of gigabytes. The information created in 2011 will be contained in more than 20 quadrillion - 20 million billion - of such containers, a tremendous management challenge for both businesses and consumers.
- Information Governance - To deal with this explosion of the digital universe in size and complexity, organisations will need to spearhead the development of organisation-wide policies for information governance: Information security, information retention, data access and compliance.
- Digital Cameras - In 2007, the number of digital cameras and camera phones in the world surpassed one billion, and fewer than 10 per cent of all still images were captured on film.
- Digital Surveillance - Shipments of networked digital surveillance cameras are doubling every year.
- Share by Industry - The enterprise share of the digital universe is widely skewed by industry, having little relationship to GDP or IT spending. The finance industry accounts for almost 20 per cent of worldwide IT spending but only six per cent of the digital universe. Meanwhile, media, entertainment and communications industries will account for 10 times their share of the digital universe in 2011 in terms of global GDP.
- "eWaste" an Environmental Concern - Electronic waste is accumulating at more than one billion units a year - mostly mobile phones, but also personal electronics and PCs. The switch to digital TV will place a lot more analogue TV sets and obsolete set-top boxes on the waste pile, which will double by 2011.
- Energy Use Increases - Power consumption that was 1 kilowatt (kW) per server rack in 2000 is now closer to 10kW. Enterprises building new data centres are planning for 20kW per rack.
The IDC white paper can be found in full at
http://www.emc.com/digitaluniverse.
http://www.bangkokpost.com/Database/26Mar2008_data001.php
As in the days of Noah....