Backup specialist Veritas Technologies claims European businesses waste billions of euros on huge stories of useless information which are growing every year. By 2020 it claims the damage caused by this excessive data will cost over half a trillion pounds (£576bn) a year.

According to the Veritas Databerg Report 2015, 59% of data stored and processed by UK organisations is invisible and could contain hidden dangers. From this it has estimated that the average mid-sized UK organisation holding 1000 Terabytes of information spends £435k annually on Redundant, Obsolete or Trivial (ROT) data. According to its estimate just 12% of the cost of data storage is justifiably spent on business-critical intelligence.

The report blames employees and management for the waste. The first group treats corporate IT systems as their own personal infrastructure, while management are too reliant on cloud storage, which leaves them open to compliance violations and a higher risk of data loss.

The survey identified three major causes for Databerg growth, which stem from volume, vendor hype and the values of modern users. These root causes create problems in which IT strategies are based on data volumes not business value. Vendor hype, in turn, has convinced users to become increasingly reliant on free storage in the cloud and this consumerisation has led to a growing disregard for corporate data policies, according to the report’s authors.

As a result, big data and cloud computing could lead corporations to hit the databerg and incur massive losses. They could also sink under a prosecution for compliance failing, according to the key findings of the Databerg Report 2015.

It’s time to stop the waste, said Matthew Ellard, Senior VP for EMEA at Veritas. “Companies invest a significant amount of resources to maintain data that is totally redundant, obsolete and trivial.” This ‘ROT’ costs a typical midsize UK company, which can expect to hold 500 Terabytes of data, nearly a million pounds a year on photos, personal ID doc, music and videos.

The study was based on a survey answered by 1,475 respondents in 14 countries, including 200 in the UK.