Indeed, regulators and authorities nowadays have access to more detailed information about individuals through various databases established for taxation, war against terror, business statistics etc. Not only is there a risk that we collect too detailed and confidential information but also that these databases are interlinked.
Almost all of the leverage of the physical to higher value added has reflected the substitution of ideas – new insights – for material bulk and brute human effort. The resulting more effective organization of material has, of course, inevitably meant that less of it was needed per unit of output.