donnée

Donnée is a French term designating a single fact or datum; données denotes data as a set of information. It is used across disciplines to refer to facts or figures collected for analysis and decision-making. Etymology traces to donner, meaning to give, with donnée historically meaning something that is given or provided as a basis for reasoning or computation.

In computing and information management, data are the raw materials processed by software and stored in information systems. They can be structured, as in tables in a relational database (base de données), or unstructured, such as text, images, or audio. The distinction between data and information is common: data are processed and organized to produce information that is meaningful to users. Phrases like données personnelles refer to personal data and are subject to privacy protections under laws such as the GDPR (Règlement général sur la protection des données) in the European Union.

In French usage, the noun is predominantly treated as plural: les données sont accessibles; however, the singular la donnée is used in specialised contexts to denote a single datum. The concept covers diverse domains, including statistics, research, journalism, and public administration, and underpins practices such as data collection, data quality management, data governance, and data sharing—often framed as open data (données ouvertes) or sensitive data (données sensibles).