SECAI Core · phase 4 of 15 · noun

Data provenance

A record of the origin, history, and transformations of data

The Explain card

Plain English
Data provenance is the record of where data came from, its history, and every transformation applied to it along the way.
Example
A model card states that a training corpus came from a licensed news archive, was filtered for language, deduplicated, then sampled, with dates and tool versions for each step.
Why it matters
When a model misbehaves, provenance tells you which data source to suspect. It also answers legal and compliance questions about consent, licensing and whether poisoned sources slipped in.
Hook
The data's birth certificate and passport stamps.

Word knowledge

How the word is built, where it came from, and what it sits beside in memory.

In a sentence

On the model card, data provenance for the training corpus lists the licensed news archive, the language-filter commit, and the deduplication job that ran last March.

Why these words
  • data Latin data, things given, plural of datum supplies the given-facts half, so the trail belongs to records rather than to a painting
  • provenance French provenance, a coming forth, from Latin provenire, to come forth gives the phrase its coming-forth word, borrowed from the gallery trail of owners
Where it came from
Origin
English computing collocation from Latin data (things given, plural of datum) and French provenance (a coming forth, from Latin provenire, to come forth)
Entered the language
early 2000s
What changed
Data had meant things given, then facts granted in an argument, then the records a machine keeps. Provenance entered English in the 1780s as a coming forth, then named the successive owners of a painting. Database papers of the early 2000s borrowed that gallery word for machine records, and AI later asked a training corpus to name its sources the way a canvas names its owners.
How it is spelled
Pattern
data stays the Latin plural of datum, even when English treats it as a mass noun
Pattern
-ance nouns from French name a state or result
Pattern
pro- meaning forth keeps its o, as in proceed
Pattern
ven keeps the Latin come-root, as in venue and convene
Breaks the pattern
the noun phrase stays two words; the hyphen appears only when it modifies another noun
Breaks the pattern
data looks plural but computing English often treats it as a mass noun
Breaks the pattern
provenance looks like proven plus -ance, but the root is Latin venire (to come), not the past participle of prove

Spelled like

  • database
  • abundance
  • venue
  • convene
Broken into chunks
  • data
    • datum
    • metadata
    • database
  • pro
    • proceed
    • progress
    • produce
  • ven
    • venue
    • convene
    • revenue
  • ance
    • abundance
    • elegance
    • importance
What it sits beside

Same subject

Same shape

Data compounds

Provenance compounds

  • model provenance
  • software provenance
  • digital provenance

Lineage and custody

Where it sits in the deck

Phase 4: Data Integrity, Governance, and Provenance

Once you know what data is, learn the principles that keep it trustworthy, traceable, and minimized throughout its lifecycle.

Neighbours in this phase