On the value of Digital Traces for commercial strategy and public policy: Telecommunications data as a case study

Over the past decade, the world has become increasingly hyperconnected. We live in an environment where the Internet and its associated services are accessible and immediate, where people and businesses can communicate with each other instantly, and where machines are equally interconnected with each other. This hyperconnectivity is deeply redefining relationships between individuals, consumers and enterprises, and citizens and governments; it is introducing new opportunities but also new challenges and risks in terms of individual rights and privacy, security, cybercrime, the flow of personal data,
and access to information. As a result, our economies and societies will undergo fundamental transformations.Mastering and leveraging these transformations to
maximize the positive impacts and increase resilience against the risks that ICT can bring to the economy, society, environment, and healthcare are crucial for
boosting economic competitiveness and well-being. The present edition of The Global Information Technology Report (GITR) analyzes in detail the main drivers and impacts of this ICT-enabled hyperconnected world and contributes to the work of the World Economic Forum’s recently launched Hyperconnected World Initiative, which establishes a holistic means of understanding the systemic nature of change in a hyperconnected world