data integrity

    The absence of unintended changes or errors in some
   data.  Integrity implies that the data is an exact copy of
   some original version, e.g. that it has not been corrupted in
   the process of being written to, and read back from, a hard
   disk or during transmission via some communications channel.

   Integrity may further imply that the information represented
   by the data has been validated, i.e. verified to conform to
   certain constraints, e.g. a date's year, month and day parts
   are within the appropriate ranges and the date actually
   exists.

   (2009-06-03)