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I don't agree with this approach. The starting point should be - given that it should be an agreed that our data, information about us, is primarily ours, not the state's or anybody else's - what sort of regime do most of us want to govern it?

I'd assume (and hope) that most of us find the statement by a well known buccaneer of the insurance sector that the data his companies had on people who had expressed the slightest interest in taking out policies, was 'his data and he was entitled to do what he liked with it', chilling and totally unacceptable.

I'd also imagine that most of us would regard the alleged benefits for technological innovation as no justification for giving the state, the medical establishment or anyone else a free-for-all with our personal data.

Even there has sometimes been a downside to protectionist regulatory measures, their absence has a far worse record than their presence, viz the railway industry's resistance to fail-safe continuous braking systems and the shipping industry's resistance to the regulation of the overloading of ships.