Introduction

Abstract

Retailers, banks, governments, social networking sites, credit reference agencies and télécoms companies, amongst others, hold vast amounts of information about us. They know where we live, what we spend our money on, who our friends and family are, our likes and dislikes, our lifestyles a nd our opinions. Every year the amount of electronic information about us grows as we increasingly use internet services, social media and smart devices to move more and more of our lives into the online environment.