Wijzigingbehoud

Wijzigingbehoud is a Dutch term formed from wijziging (change) and behoud (preservation). It denotes the principle or practice of preserving modifications within a system to retain a record of changes over time.

In linguistics, some scholars might use the term to discuss mechanisms that ensure certain historical changes are retained in a language’s development, balancing innovation with conservatism. However, the term is not widely standardized in linguistics and its usage varies.

In information technology and data governance, wijzigingbehoud more commonly appears as change retention or change history: the act of capturing, storing, and making available records of alterations to data, software, or configurations. This includes change logs, version histories, audit trails, and, where appropriate, immutable logs.

Implementation involves version control systems (for example, Git), database history, event sourcing, and policies that govern how long records are kept and who can access them. It supports rollback, auditing, compliance with regulations, and data lineage.

Benefits of wijzigingbehoud include improved traceability, accountability, troubleshooting, and regulatory compliance. Challenges can include storage overhead, potential performance impact, privacy considerations, and governance complexity.

See also: version control, audit trail, change management, data lineage.