gagnasafns

Gagnasafn is an Icelandic term for an organized collection of data stored electronically, designed for retrieval, processing, and analysis. It is commonly used to refer to a database or data set within information technology and data management contexts.

The word is a compound formed from gagn- meaning data or information, and safn meaning collection. In inflected usage, gagnasafns is a frequent form, and the plural gagnasöfn is used for multiple data collections.

Gagnasafns can take different architectural forms, including relational databases with tables and schemas, as well as non-relational stores such as document, key-value, or graph databases. A gagnasafn typically includes data, metadata, indexing, security and access controls, and mechanisms for querying and updating records.

For government registers, corporate systems, research datasets, and digital services, gagnasöfn are central components. They are subject to data protection and privacy regulations, and considerations about data ownership, consent, retention, and data sovereignty in Iceland may apply.

Related topics include databases and data management.