As a software engineer, I think people should really understand the full extent of how their data is being collected, stored, and used.

Some facts:

Over 90% of all the data in the world was created in the past 2 years.

Every 2 days we create as much information as we did from the beginning of time until 2003.

If you burned all of the data created in just one day onto DVDs, you could stack them on top of each other and reach the moon – twice.

By 2017, nearly 80% of photos were taken on smart phones and most will became searchable data.

Our accumulated digital universe as of 2020 was roughly 44 zettabytes, or 44 trillion gigabytes.

Less than 0.5% of all data we create is ever analyzed and used.

For a typical Fortune 1000 company, just a 10% increase in data accessibility will result in more than $65 million additional net income.

In 2013, psychologists David Stillwell and Michal Kosinski reported that that by examining which posts or pages a user ‘liked’ on Facebook, it was possible to accurately predict sensitive information such as sexual orientation and personality traits.

In 2016, leaked Facebook data was used by Facebook and Cambridge Analytica to precisely target the public to influence the general election and exacerbated the spiral of echo chambers to the dangerous degree that we see today.

Requesting that your data be deleted is by no means always easy, transparent or trustworthy.

Your data is worth roughly from as little as $12 a year to as much as $35 per month.

Because of the financial benefits of using your data to market products or opinions directly to those who will purchase or receive them, we are in unprecedented times where we truly live in the wild west of data and until security, regulations, and laws catch up, everyone should be cognizant of what they put online and where.