If there is one thing that the human race creates more than anything else, it’s data. More than 2.5 billion gigabytes is generated each day, according to IBM, which also says that 90% of the world’s data has been created in the past two years.

Almost every action we make, directly or indirectly, contributes to this phenomenon of "big data". Swiping a transport card, buying a sandwich from a supermarket, even using a lift can generate dozens of pieces of information that many believe can be analysed to gain insight into commercial and social behaviour.