For John Ackerly, his time in the Bush Administration made him think seriously about data’s importance—not only from a security and technological perspective, but a societal one. “I was in the room as the Patriot Act rolled through,” said Ackerly, who served as associate director for the White House National Economic Council from 2001 to 2002. At the time, the government had gained access to a lot of the data that businesses and establishments collected about U.S. citizens. However, over time, n...