Scalable services and infrastructure needs to exist to maximise the benefits provided by big data opportunities. Infrastructure and services for data, especially data which are personal are not simply capital costs. Infrastructure and services for these data include hardware and software, but also the skills and human resources to make them function. Shared france rcs data infrastructure is likely to be more efficient. In the social sciences the ratio of pure capital and operational costs may be in the region of 1 to 10; in the hard sciences this ratio may be in the region of 10 (or more) to 1. This imbalance needs to be taken into consideration in investment.
Resources are also required to exploit the data itself. secure robust methodologies to analyse those data and / or to even access those data; resource is required for research, especially research which does not have a commercial application, so that it can inform and influence commercial applications. Further research and public dialogues around ethical and legal areas needs to happen.
Big Data facilities, like the Administrative Research Data Network need to unequivocally set themselves apart from organisations which commodify personal data without proper ethical safeguards, and maintain levels of independence which the public or customers (as data subjects) have confidence in.