Last updated on December 2, 2025
I recently sat down with Steven J. Manning for a critical conversation about a topic that is rapidly reshaping our professional and personal lives: the control of data and the rise of the digital ID. It’s clear that data is the new oil, and the race to control it by 2030 is already being won in some parts of the world, like China, and looks to be gaining traction in places like the UK, despite public reservations. In this conversation, we explore the potential trajectory from having a digital identity to facing a pervasive social score. We discuss the terrifying exponential growth of data, the immense potential for abuse, and what business leaders must do to protect customer trust while still driving revenue.
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Key Insights & Timestamps
• (00:00) – The Digital ID Wars: Why who controls your data by 2030 is a huge topic, and the worrying implications of control of the masses.
• (02:30) – The startling statistic on data growth: More data was developed and added to the world’s body of data yesterday than the entire aggregate in history before that one day.
• (05:10) – What drives exponential data growth, including AI and the relative ease of crunching and mining consumer information.
• (10:00) – The acquisition of 500 data points on individuals to develop sophisticated psychological profiles for marketing and prospect generation.
• (15:45) – Why the digital ID, if not vigilantly managed, can rapidly become a social score, leading to the marginalization of people, as demonstrated by the Chinese model.
• (20:05) – The bizarre revelation that houses of worship are quietly using data, AI, and even facial recognition as engines of surveillance, managing spiritual health like customer engagement.
• (25:15) – The importance of customer service as a “report card” and the strategy of aligning staff bonuses entirely on turning complaints into repeat customers.
• (30:20) – The critical balance: understanding that the negative infection rate (dissatisfied customers) is much higher than the positive (happy customers).
• (35:50) – The biggest risk for executives in the digital age: data theft, which immediately leads to customer exodus and reputation disaster.
• (39:30) – The fascinating use of DNA databases, where 6 million people’s data is enough to help catch every criminal in the entire North American continent.
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Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
What is driving the massive, exponential increase in data worldwide?
The huge increase in data is driven by three main factors: AI, the availability of data, and the relative ease with which we assemble, crunch, interrogate, and mine the data.
How does the concept of a digital ID relate to a social score?
If people are not vigilant, the digital ID can rapidly become a social score. The social score is the fastest way to marginalize or control people, generating them at a specific level, which is the model currently employed in China.
What is the biggest threat to an executive’s professional reputation in the digital age?
The biggest threat is data theft. People steal data to use or misuse it, and when a company gets hacked, executives risk sending a disaster notice to customers who may immediately move their business elsewhere due to loss of trust.
How can business leaders balance protecting customer data with driving revenue growth?
Leaders must first understand their customer’s needs, wants, desires, and fears. To balance security and profit, they must manage customer expectations by laboriously going out to the customer base and communicating exactly what data they have, how they use it, and asking if there is anything the customer wishes they did not have, which helps solidify the consumer relationship.
Full Episode Transcript
(Transcript)
Nat Schooler: The digital identity wars. Who controls your data by 2030? This is a huge, huge topic. We all know who’s winning that race in China. In the UK, it looks like the government is winning it despite the fact that we’ve had 3 million people not want a digital ID. It’s quite worrying really, isn’t it? The situation that we’re in because of, you know, George Orwell’s 1984, the control of the masses. Data is the new oil, right? So, what’s your view? I know you’ve been pondering this for decades.
Guest: I it’s it’s a biggie. We have been in a data world, if you will, the big data world since the 80s. I need to start with a startling statistic and then I’ll go back. Today is October 29, 2025, which is unremarkable other than in the United States to be a baseball fan, you know, the World Series other than there’s nothing historically relevant today except that yesterday, October 28th, and again, it will happen today, October 29th. There’s more data that has been developed and added the body of data in the world yesterday for the one day than the entire aggregate in history. Of course, what drives this is three things. AI, the availability of data and the relative ease with which we crunch the data, assemble it, crunch it, interrogate it, mine it, whatever that whatever is that we do with it.
Guest: Well, there’s a lot of scientific stuff, a lot of historical stuff. And then there’s a lot about the most important component in commerce which is people the consumer. So the consumer data is exponentially bigger, broader, deeper today than it was yesterday because everyone collects everything. I remember back in the old days a couple decades ago when we were confronted with not having enough data that we thought we needed, we got into data by… it was a presumptive data. In simple terms, I don’t know anything about you. I can’t find you’re not in a database. But you know what? I can infer a lot about you called infer data. In other words, we look at the neighborhood you live in, the block you live in, the building you live in, house you live in. We look at population density and all of that. And then we look at population trends in that area. Our financial database that is focused on credit card data… we broaden the appeal of this massive database, 120 million households. And one of the ways we do that is we go out and literally buy 500 data points. This is scary stuff because you have to be careful you make not to make judgments on people based on some of the data. The data that’s out there is spellbindingly scary for even for data user. The potential for abuse is as good as a potential for good use.
Nat Schooler: Yeah.
Guest: I sat next to this man… He was the CTO, headtech for a supermarket chain. I could not could not figure out after seven hours of talking to this very smart guy. His number one concern was fighting off 11 attempts weekly to hack their database. That is what he does more than anything else. The assembly of all the data which ends up being a digital ID which, if you not vigilant… the digital ID becomes a social score. The social score is the fastest way to marginalizing people or if you want to be valiant about it to generating people at a level that you want rather than not want. That’s the Chinese model today.
Guest: The difference between what we’re doing here now and mind you You know how long it takes the credit check when you walk into a retailer? 5 seconds or something less. Exactly. The scariest thing in my in in the world for me… is the digital ID if you will in China that is the biggest event of this kind in the history of the world. They every single Chinese human has a social score. The problem is is that you accumulate that score and if the score gets low enough, you’re not superolous.
Nat Schooler: Exactly. Exactly right. But then, but then at the moment you know, who’s winning the race to control digital identity, right? And why should business leaders care, right? Like back back to the question, business leaders should care because it can improve their revenue. Houses of worship are quietly using data and AI as engines of surveillance and reshaping the theology of trust. Thousands of churches have been sold on the idea that spiritual health can be managed like customer engagement which I thought was fascinating. The problems exist is when you combine all of this with facial recognition. To the best of my knowledge, no church notifies its congregants that it’s using facial recognition. You can actually help them in their lives but you can also turn them off. You can also send them over the edge because if you send them the wrong communication at the wrong time. I actually think that it could be really beneficial. It could actually mean that they could get food. They might not suffer at home so much because they know. But the moment that you’re not in control of the data is when personally I believe the problems exist.
Nat Schooler: My opinion from where I’m sitting is there are levels… there’s this box of data which you’re in control of. But then the more you give away to Facebook, the more you talk on your mobile phone and the microphone is on… the more data that marketers have on you because they are tracking you.
Guest: I know more than a couple lawyers, law firms that make an exceptional living based upon the failure rate of what you just said. The whole opt out thing. The pretense of privacy is just that privacy. Is it heresy to say that organized religion in fact is a business as well? It is a business.
Nat Schooler: Most most definitely.
Guest: So if I can tell a religious organization, I can double the giving for you… they say sure.
Nat Schooler: How do you balance protecting customer data with driving revenue growth because that’s a difficult one, isn’t it?
Guest: If you don’t understand who your client, who your customer is, and you don’t understand your customer needs, needs, wants, desires, fears, go sell shoes in the habedasherie. One of the companies that I was fortunate to grow up in, we fulfilled 10, 12, 14 million customer orders a year. That customer service department generated what was called the book, a 36-page report on all the contacts for the for the for the week. Every senior management person in the company wore customer service one day a month. You take the calls… If you don’t do that, how do you know how you’re doing? That’s your report card. Half of the income [of customer service staff] was dependent entirely on how many complaints they turn into a repeat customer. We went out and and this is very laborious. We want to say, listen, we appreciate you, love you. Here are five things you’d like to ask you. Be specific, please. How far do we push this where the where the where the cost is too great. In my world again the negative infection rate is much higher than positive. It’s you need to understand that it comes with understanding your customer. It is laborious to go out to thousand people 5,000 People say, “Here are five things we do with your data. And by the way, we can’t do what the banks do. They send you the plain number 10 envelope… in four point type, two and a half pages backwards and forwards. I’m not going to read it.” Don’t make two page a a page, half a page. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. What you just done is you avoided a tsunami of complaints and you solidified a consumer.
Nat Schooler: So, you know, it really is it’s really dependent on the organization. Every organization is responsible for their own data, their their own reputation and how they handle that, right? What’s the biggest threat to an executive’s professional reputation in the digital age is a is a is a big question. From my perspective, I think that we’re at risk of deep fakes. But what do you think the biggest sort of risk is for executives, Steve, in in this in this data world that we’re living in?
Guest (Steve): Well, I think data theft has to be number one. Because people stealing data are not doing that just to have it. They’re doing it to use it or misuse it. There are enough companies that are not investing the necessary money to safeguard the customer data as well as their own. Talk about a disaster when you have to reach out to your customer say sorry we got hacked.
Nat Schooler: What happens as an executive? You you are into some product client or whatever vertical you’re in and you have a bunch of customers that you and then you’re in a competitive environment. And what happens? You send out that email notice saying, dear customer, we’ve had a data breach. I, for one, move my business immediately. I love the part. I was sorry. We had a data how how elegant. We had a data breach. And I said, wait a minute. The insurance They know my blood type.
Nat Schooler: I was actually reading something the other day about a similar thing to ancestry.com. So, say three or four million people. No, I think it was six million. That was it. 6 million people give access to their DNA. The DNA from that database from those six million people is enough to catch every single criminal in the entire entire American continent. Think about think about that, right?
Guest (Steve): Fascinating. The scary part for me actually. is that enough people and that’s going I believe that will change it’ll change sooner than later because people have people’s tolerance to people taking advantage of them is actually shifts with time because it becomes accepting.
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