What does data integrity ensure?

Data integrity primarily ensures that data is clean, consistent, and secure from corruption. This concept is crucial for maintaining reliability within databases and information systems. When data integrity is upheld, it means that the data accurately reflects the intended realities it is supposed to depict, and any duplication or inaccuracies have been addressed. This includes enforcing data validation rules, maintaining referential integrity within relational databases, and applying access controls to safeguard against unauthorized modifications.

Maintaining data integrity also encompasses the process of ensuring that the data remains intact during storage and transmission, thus enhancing its overall trustworthiness, which is vital for making informed business decisions.

In contrast, while optimizing data for quick access is important for performance, it does not directly relate to the reliability or correctness of the data itself. Retaining historical data indefinitely may be necessary in some contexts, but it isn't a direct component of data integrity. Lastly, restricting report generation to only authorized users is important for security purposes, but it does not pertain specifically to the integrity of the data itself.