Performance data in higher education has gone through a major development in the last few decades. Simple input measures have given way to increasingly nuanced and dynamic output measures and performance indicators have become an integral part of management at the organisational and system level. The evolution of higher education performance measurement shows a reiterative relationship between data availability, its purpose in a governance system and its target audience. Digitalisation of learning, management and communication systems has revolutionised data availability, creating new possibilities for 'big data' use. Based on insights from the past evolution, current experiments with 'big data' and lessons from other sectors, the article explores what the new 'big data' era might mean for higher education governance. The high volume of data but also its speed of accumulation and related analytical techniques, are likely to substantially transform the current relationship between data and performance but also create some technical, ethical and policy challenges.