Digital data

In information theory and technology, digital data is discretely represented information. In this form, data can be better or exclusively read or processed by computers or other digital signal processing devices.

In order to obtain digital data, it must first be digitized. They can then be transferred and stored efficiently and error-tolerantly (e.g. through checksums). Colloquially, digital data is often understood to mean digital documents, images and videos. More rarely and erroneously, it is also used to refer to meta-information that is generated during the use of computers or the Internet and can provide information about the person.

Although digital signals are generally associated with the binary electronic digital systems of modern electronics and computer science, digital systems are actually ancient and need not be binary or electronic. The genetic code of DNA is a naturally occurring form of digital data storage, just as written text (due to its limited character set and use of discrete symbols - in most cases the alphabet) is an ancient artificial form of it.

Under the buzzword data ownership, it is being discussed whether, in view of the increasing economic value of digital data, there should be statutory regulation of rights of use and exploitation. Under current law, ownership of the data itself (as opposed to, for example, the data carrier on which it is stored) is not possible, since ownership in the civil law sense (Section 903 of the German Civil Code) can in principle only exist in objects, i.e. physical objects (Section 90 of the German Civil Code). However, the concept of ownership (also, but not only, of digital data) is often equated in common parlance with the right of access and disposal. Independent of the question of ownership is the role of the so-called data owner, which describes the responsibility for the quality assurance of certain company data, for example.

Properties

• Production costs are usually high
• Reproduction costs are very low. Digital data can theoretically be made available as often as desired without additional costs.
• There is no loss of quality due to copying.
• Digital data can be provided centrally and are then immediately available everywhere at the same time.
• Digital data in electronic form is characterised by non-rivalry, i.e. a book in physical form, for example, can only ever be borrowed by one person in a library. If, on the other hand, the book is available electronically, it can be borrowed by any number of people at the same time.