A Student knows the marks he got in his last semester or exam.

The businessman knows the profits

or the losses he faced in the last month. The politicians know the number of poor people in their
country.

The marks, the profits or losses, the number of poor people is all a Data. The accurate data an
organization has, the more successful it is likely to become.

The accuracy and consistency of Data is Data integrity. Why has it become the top most
requirement in every other business?

This article enlightens you about it.

What is Data Integrity?

There is tremendous amount of data which is being shared Online every day. In Computer World the
data is in patterns of two numbers 0 and 1. Data isn’t stable once you create it. It can be
manipulated through several ways like Human interference, viruses, malwares which are part of
Data Corruption. The method through which you maintain, assure the accuracy and consistency of
Data is Data Integrity.

Data Corruption and its types

Corruption is not just related to Politics. Data Corruption which is form of Data Loss is simply the
opposite of Data Integrity. Data possess various threats,

1. Physical Corruption- Data has many physical threats like disasters, radiations, extreme
temperatures, design flaws, less power supply and many more.
2. Logical Corruption- Software bugs, Human errors are types of Logical Corruption.

Why is Data Integrity important?

When a businessman or an organization has an accurate Data then they can take decisions
considering the Data which is available to them which will surely be beneficial for them in their
businesses. Data Integrity is meant to stop accidental changes to Data Information. For example, a
cosmetics business would be probably about knowing Women population and their literacy levels in
a particular area. This is just small example. Data integrity is vast and the need of time.

Data Integrity and Data Security

Lots of people get confused between Data Integrity and Data Security. Data Integrity is all about
storing, maintaining and validating Data. Whereas Data Security is protecting Data from other
unauthorised access. They both are inter-connected but not the same.

Data Integrity in other countries

In the US and UK, the food and drug administration, mining, health, finance sector all have started
focussing on the importance of Data Integrity. The US Food and Drug Administration has even given
a guidance to its industry about Data Integrity.
and their Data is a abstract concept which exists in thoughts but doesn’t have a physical entity.