In ‘The Data Dividend’, co-authored by Demos’ Max Wind-Cowie and the Republic’s Rohit Lekhi and Thomas Jeffery, we welcome the opportunities presented by big data while suggesting ways of mitigating their risks. The report argues that “the increasing complexity of our online lives mirrors the increasing complexity of lived experience”: this broader perspective gives data-driven services their potential to respond to the needs of users, but also means that the ways in which data is collected, stored and used directly influences their legitimacy and usefulness. Increased volumes of data cannot substitute for the contextualised knowledge of service users, frontline staff and experts. This is why a strategic approach harnesses high-quality data towards the transformation of services, rather than capturing low-quality data to gain short-term advantages.