I hope it's teaching us that the next time some ivory tower bureaucrats suggest something, we'll assume they're full of shit and make it a lot harder for them to pull this kind of garbage.
I see it as MY data and YOUR data is pretty worthless. Aggregate data has value, but then that doesn't contain much insight about any individual at all.
Isn't it true that the more people's data you have, the less it says about any individual?
I don't see why it would. Unless legally compelled not to, why wouldn't you save both PII and aggregate?