ABSTRACT
In America between the World Wars, data-orientated bureaucracy provided by the likes of International Business Machines, underpinned and supported a wide range of business, government, and military needs. The aftermath of World War II unleashed organisational and bureaucratic theories and practices encompassing economic, political, and legal thinking, which shared in common the need for massive systems of data and information processing and retrieval. Personal data as a giving of oneself that can be superficial, profound, or perhaps nothing at all, is, therefore, an important departure from existing and narrow conceptions of data subjectivity. From basic calculating tools to ‘beautiful machines’ at the heart of total bureaucratic infrastructures capable of ‘stitching’ organising, storing, and manipulating data, information, people, and behaviour, computers and rapidly accessible data banks redefined economics and politics, and dragged the Information Age out of the laboratory and into wider society and the popular imagination.
