Editing Data integrity (section)

== Definition ==
Data integrity is the opposite of [[data corruption]].<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=oI2GAgAAQBAJ&dq=data+integrity+opposite+data+corruption&pg=PA40 From the book: Uberveillance and the Social Implications of Microchip Implants: Emerging Page 40]</ref> The overall intent of any data integrity technique is the same: ensure data is recorded exactly as intended (such as a database correctly rejecting mutually exclusive possibilities). Moreover, upon later [[Data retrieval|retrieval]], ensure the data is the same as when it was originally recorded. In short, data integrity aims to prevent unintentional changes to information. Data integrity is not to be confused with [[data security]], the discipline of protecting data from unauthorized parties.

Any unintended changes to data as the result of a storage, retrieval or processing operation, including malicious intent, unexpected hardware failure, and [[human error]], is failure of data integrity. If the changes are the result of unauthorized access, it may also be a failure of data security. Depending on the data involved this could manifest itself as benign as a single pixel in an image appearing a different color than was originally recorded, to the loss of vacation pictures or a business-critical database, to even catastrophic loss of human life in a [[life-critical system]].