Glossary
Data integrity
The degree to which data is complete, consistent and accurate across its lifecycle. The thing every other control exists to protect.
Data integrity is not a feature or a module; it is the property that makes a regulated decision defensible. Every control in the GxP toolbox, from audit trails to access management to validation itself, exists so that the number on which a batch was released can be trusted years later.
Most integrity failures are behavioral rather than technical: shared accounts, testing into compliance, original records in desk drawers. Systems can make the right thing easy and the wrong thing visible, but culture decides whether anyone looks.
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