DEALING WITH DATA: ELECTRONIC RECORDS COMPLIANCE
Data is growing exponentially. This growth reflects the increasing digitalisation of global activities – from consumer applications to industrial operations, including demand for real-time analytics and automation.
According to Statista, the total global volume of data is set to explode over the coming years, amounting to an expected 394 zettabytes by 2028 – a substantial increase from 2025’s forecast of 182 zettabytes and the two zettabytes recorded in 2010.
Further analyses indicate that approximately 90 percent of the world’s data has been generated within the past two years and, according to the International Data Corporation, the volume of data stored globally is doubling approximately every four years.
“Data is created and stored across a wide range of systems, including enterprise servers, cloud platforms, personal devices, internet of things (IoT) ecosystems and digital platforms like social media and streaming services,” states the 2025 Rivery analysis ‘Big data statistics: How much data is there in the world?’. “A large portion of this data is transient – used and discarded quickly – while the rest is stored for longer-term use in archives, backups or active datasets.
“The distribution of data is also changing. Cloud storage now holds the majority of global data – approximately 60 percent of all corporate data is cloud-stored – reflecting the ongoing shift from local storage systems to scalable and flexible cloud environments,” continues the Rivery analysis. “At the same time, IoT devices and edge computing solutions reduce latency and bandwidth usage, enhancing real-time data processing capabilities.”
Jan-Mar 2026 Issue
Fraser Tennant