A kind correspondent points me to this mid-90s book The Panoptic Sort: A Political Economy of Personal Information by Oscar H. Gandy here for those who can use Questia or here at Amazon

This book aims to inform the reader about exactly what is at stake when the bureaucracies of government and commerce compile, share and make use of an almost unlimited amount of information to manage the social and economic systems within their spheres. The author describes and analyzes today’s panoptic operation, which depends on the ability of operators to classify and sort information about individuals in such a way that techniques of correct training or rehabilitation may subsequently be applied more efficiently.

Sounds like the business. Has anyone read it and taken it on board, I wonder?