The responsibility for maintaining and protecting a huge amount of data lies with businesses across the world, a new survey has found.

A study conducted by storage firm EMC found that while 70 per cent of online content is created by consumers, 85 per cent of it is guarded by firms.

The report, “The Diverse and Exploding Digital Universe,” also found that from 2006 to 2007 the amount of online data in the world grew by 10 percent.

Commenting on the findings, Joe Tucci, chief executive of EMC, said: "Organisations need to plan for the limitless opportunities to use information in new ways and for the challenges of information governance.

"As people's digital footprints continue growing, so too will the responsibility of organisations for the privacy, protection, availability and reliability of that information."

Firms which have a large amount of important data may wish to consider investing in a business continuity plan to help protect against loss.

A recent study by the Chartered Management Institute found that only 47 per cent of bodies in the UK have a businesses continuity plan in place.

A recent survey for Connect found that one in ten companies has lost important data as a result of a backup failure. The company has now developed a unique online backup service - http://www.totalrecall.co.uk – for SMEs to ensure they can survive any disaster