You might not be aware of it, but almost every minute of your day you are adding to the world's vast reservoir of "big data".

Technology correspondent Rory Cellan-Jones reports on how the data you create when you buy something, travel somewhere, read a webpage, or communicate with someone else using a phone or email, is being used by companies to better predict people's shopping habits.

James Murray, European vice-president of Splunk, a big data company which "mines" such information, told the Today programme that the data is a powerful tool which is being put to good use - citing the example of a company in the US which uses health data to monitor patients wellbeing.

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