LONDON - The digital age has taught businesses to see people as individuals rather than just as members of certain demographic cohorts. On social media, people receive personalized ads based on their responses to previous ads, their current locations, and their shopping habits. People’s massive digital footprints enables companies to know precisely how effective their advertising campaigns are at the individual level and to derive immense value from this knowledge.

Alas, it seems that this technological wave has yet to reach policymakers. Despite the advantages of Big Data, governments still tend to use a one-size-fits-all approach when planning investments or designing policies. To help improve public services through better use of data, we have therefore developed a new framework we call Quantum Governance.

Every successful business is built on three foundations: a shared goal, which serves as its raison d’être and the tools and methods to achieve it, and consumers, who are motivated by their own interests, ambitions, and beliefs. While it has become a staple of public debate that governments should operate like businesses, that is often impossible because these two types of social organizations were created for different purposes. What they do have in common, however, is the human factor, and that should be the focus of public-private partnerships in the digital age.

To perform well, both governments and businesses need to measure, assess, and understand information about people. While preventing abuse requires sound data governance, the status quo offers little hope: large and powerful corporations hoard valuable datasets, lose public trust, and lobby legislators to avoid oversight, while governments resort to top