Adatintegritás

Adatintegritás, or adat integritás, is the principle that data remains accurate, complete, and consistent throughout its lifecycle. It encompasses preventing unauthorized modification, maintaining internal coherence among data items, and preserving the relationships between data elements as they are created, stored, processed, transmitted and archived.

Key dimensions include accuracy, completeness, consistency, validity, and timeliness, as well as traceability and auditability. Adatintegritás implies that data reflects real-world states correctly and that changes are recorded in a verifiable manner.

Organizations protect data integrity through a combination of technical and organizational measures. Mechanisms include input validation, referential integrity constraints in databases, and ACID transactional properties to ensure reliable updates. Cryptographic hashes and digital signatures help detect tampering, while versioning, backups, and redundancy support recoverability. Access controls, encryption, and secure transmission further reduce the risk of unauthorized changes. Data lineage and audit trails provide accountability for data provenance and modifications.

Lifecycle considerations are central: integrity must be maintained from data ingestion through storage, processing, and eventual disposal. Data governance and data quality programs monitor, measure, and improve integrity, while incident response and change management address violations.

Standards and frameworks relevant to adatintegritás include ISO/IEC 25012 and ISO/IEC 25024 for data quality, and ISO/IEC 27001 for information security management, which collectively address integrity as a security and quality objective. In practice, data integrity is essential for reliable reporting, regulatory compliance, and risk management across finance, healthcare, and other data-driven sectors.