Data integrity

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Data integrity is a term used in computer science and telecommunications that can mean ensuring data is "whole" or complete, the condition in which data are identically maintained during any operation (such as transfer, storage or retrieval), the preservation of data for their intended use, or, relative to specified operations, the a priori expectation of data quality. Put simply, data integrity is the assurance that data is consistent and correct.

Often such integrity is ensured by use of a number referred to as a Message Integrity Code (MIC) or Message Authentication Code (MAC).

In cryptography and information security in general, integrity refers to the validity of data. Integrity can be compromised through:

Malicious altering, such as an attacker altering an account number in a bank transaction, or forgery of an identity document
Accidental altering, such as a transmission error, or a hard disk crash

Data integrity in a relational database is concerned with accuracy, correctness, and validity of the data in a database. A common variety of data integrity is referential integrity, which involves prevention of errors in Foreign Key to Primary Key relationships, such as an orphan child record that is missing its parent record (sometimes termed a dangling foreign key).

An example of a data integrity mechanism in cryptography is the use of MD5 hash values. These blocks of bytes function as a numeric summation of the content of a data item. Should the data change, the MD5 hash would yield a different result.

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