EMZETT.Data
In short: Digitally stored or transmitted information — the raw material IT systems work with, regardless of format or meaning.
In more detail: Data only becomes usable information through context and structure. In IT, a distinction is made, among other things, between structured data (e.g. database tables), unstructured data (e.g. free text, images), and personal data, which is subject to special legal protection (GDPR).
In Depth
A common distinction in practice:
- Structured data: follows a fixed schema, e.g. rows/columns in an SQL database table — easy to search and analyse.
- Semi-structured data: has some structure but no rigid schema, e.g. JSON or XML documents.
- Unstructured data: free text, images, videos — contain information, but not in a form directly analysable by machines.
Data alone isn’t yet information — only through context, structure and interpretation do raw bits and bytes become usable insight (the classic DIKW pyramid: Data → Information → Knowledge → Wisdom). A sequence of numbers like 20260917 is meaningless on its own; only the knowledge that it’s a date in the format YYYYMMDD turns it into information.
Special legal categories: personal data (anything that makes a person identifiable) is subject to the GDPR; a subgroup of this is especially sensitive data (health, religion, sexual orientation, etc.), which is subject to even stricter requirements.
See also: Personal Data, Data Management