As a child, I enjoyed watching Inspector Gadget. I always marvelled at the self-destructing messages. Secretly I was hoping to receive one in the post, but alas I did not.

However, today, with automation, AI, and other fun tech, we can make messages ‘self-destruct’. Snapchat is a good example. It’s not physical paper burning up in your hands after you read it, but it is a bit of deletion wizardy.

Oddly, this capability comes from the tech world. And yet, within digital transformation one of the ongoing challenges is the deletion of data after the purpose for which it was collected is fulfilled. Data tends to stick around, spread, and cause harm. So perhaps we need to build in some self-destruction. With Inspector Gadget the message self-destructed after reading, with the data we collect a time period could be set as part of the project design or project close out.

And yes data spreads. Fast. And yet, we can track the location of goods globally and digital companies are quite good a surveillance, so perhaps we can track data too?

But perhaps we don’t because we don’t want to?