Comment by _heimdall

Why is it a given that we need to trust an entity with our data? Most of human history got by without data collection, centralized or otherwise, there's no innate law of nature requiring it

It doesn't require only trusting the government (or another corporation) today, it requires trusting all future iterations of them as well. It may be a different story if the data was periodically purged, say after each administration for example.