Vanishing Public Records Makes Enterprise Data a Strategic Asset
This article highlights a U.S. centered trend that has lessons for all of us. Around the world, public data that organisations once took for granted, such as climate information, economic figures or health statistics, can sometimes disappear, change or become harder to trust. The message is simple: we can’t always rely on public records being there when we need them. For Australian practitioners, it’s a reminder to treat our own organisational records as a valuable asset: something to protect, manage well and use wisely. That’s why we’ve included this piece: to prompt us all to think about how we safeguard and get the most out of the information we hold.
Public data has long been the backbone of research, policymaking, and business intelligence. But in recent years, datasets once considered reliable, climate models, economic indicators, even health statistics have started disappearing or being manipulated. For CIOs, this seismic shift signals an urgent challenge: without stable external data, internal information assets must evolve from background records into strategic lifelines.
“Enterprises will increasingly assign value to their internal data and go beyond partnerships to monetise it,” explains Olga Kupriyanova, principal consultant at ISG. “For example, wind measurements from a turbine company could be invaluable across industries far outside of energy.”
This trend isn’t just theoretical. In 2025, U.S. agencies including the EPA, NOAA and CDC removed thousands of datasets, erasing critical insights into climate risks, public health, and environmental justice. FEMA’s “Future Risk Index”, a disaster-planning tool used by businesses and governments alike was dismantled, only to be partially recreated by The Guardian. The loss highlights just how fragile public records can be.
The fallout is global. Analysts estimate U.S. public data once supported nearly $750 billion in business activity. Across Europe, governments and researchers are now building alternative systems and launching “guerrilla archiving” efforts to preserve what they can.
For enterprises, this moment marks both a crisis and an opportunity. As Farshid Sabet, CEO of Corvic AI, notes: “We’re entering a defining moment in AI where access to reliable, ethical data is the central bottleneck—and also the most valuable asset.”
Forward-looking CIOs are now exploring new data monetisation models, licensing IoT telemetry, offering Data-as-a-Service subscriptions, or even creating privacy-safe synthetic datasets. The market rewards early movers, with premium prices already flowing to companies who recognise their information as a goldmine.
In a fractured information landscape, one truth stands out: organisations that safeguard, curate, and monetise their internal data won’t just weather the loss of public data, they’ll lead the next wave of competitive advantage.