> What seems unimportant and insignificant to us now might become very interesting in the future.
Often this argument is used to try to justify things as important as mass-surveillance and as small as logging in a software project. “Just collect and retain everything, who knows what we’ll actually need!” With GDPR and increasing focus on massive & intrusive data collection, I think this mindset is going to have to change. Before deciding to preserve or collect information (particularly information of a personal nature, like social media accounts), you should be prepared to justify the activity. “It might be useful one day, maybe” shouldn’t be good enough.
Often this argument is used to try to justify things as important as mass-surveillance and as small as logging in a software project. “Just collect and retain everything, who knows what we’ll actually need!” With GDPR and increasing focus on massive & intrusive data collection, I think this mindset is going to have to change. Before deciding to preserve or collect information (particularly information of a personal nature, like social media accounts), you should be prepared to justify the activity. “It might be useful one day, maybe” shouldn’t be good enough.