Data are an asset and need to be valued fairly and regulated properly — that is the consensus building on both sides of the Atlantic after a steady drumbeat of legal rulings and calls from politicians over the past two weeks in Germany, the UK and the US. It is no surprise that the company at the heart of these cases is Facebook, the social media giant which has become the poster child for so much that is troublesome about Big Tech.

In the UK, the House of Commons digital, culture, media and sport committee has accused Facebook of “intentionally and knowingly” violating data privacy laws and said it should be investigated by competition and data regulators. In the US, Facebook is in talks with the Federal Trade Commission over settling an investigation into privacy violations that could result in a record fine. The US watchdog is scrutinising whether Facebook broke a consent order signed with the FTC in 2011, which required it to be clear with users about how their data were being shared with third parties.

Both investigations were triggered by worries about election meddling during the 2016 Brexit referendum and US presidential elections. These fears typically concern privacy and the way in which personal data can be shared with third parties (such as Cambridge Analytica, the UK company which improperly accessed personal information of 87m Facebook users).