Non-official sources of data, big data in particular, are currently attracting enormous interest in the world of official statistics. An impressive body of work focuses on how different types of big data (telecom data, social media, sensors and geospatial data, etc.) can be used to fill specific data gaps, especially with regard to the post-2015 agenda and the associated technology challenges. This paper focuses on different aspects of big data, but ones that are of crucial importance: what are the perspectives of the commercial operations and national statistical offices that respectively produce and might use this data; and which incentives, business models and protocols are needed to leverage non-official data sources within the official statistics community?