SECAI Core · phase 4 of 15 · noun

Data verification

The process of confirming that the data is accurate or true.

The Explain card

Plain English
Data verification is the process of confirming that data is accurate or true, checking it against a trusted source or expected rules before anyone relies on it.
Example
Before adding a threat intelligence feed to a training set, analysts verify a sample of indicators against independent sources and find a chunk of stale false positives.
Why it matters
Models learn what they are shown, true or not. Verification is the gate that keeps fabricated records, mislabeled examples and attacker-planted entries out of the learning process.
Hook
Trust, but verify, before you train.

Word knowledge

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

In a sentence

On the ingest pipeline, data verification for the threat-feed table matches each indicator against two independent sources before the row is written to the training set.

Why these words
  • data Latin data, things given, plural of datum supplies the given-facts half, so the second pass is of records rather than of a spoken claim
  • verification Medieval Latin verificare, to make true, from Latin verus, true, plus facere, to make names the make-true action, so the given facts must survive a second pass before they are used
Where it came from
Origin
English computing collocation from Latin data (things given, plural of datum) and Medieval Latin verificatio (a making true, from verificare)
Entered the language
1950s
What changed
Data had meant things given, then facts granted in an argument, then the records a machine keeps. Verification had meant a making-true, then the checking of a quotation, then a second keying of a punch card. Punch-card shops of the 1950s joined the pair for the operator who caught a mistyped field, and AI later used the collocation for the ingest step that rejects a scrape before a model trains on it.
How it is spelled
Pattern
data stays the Latin plural of datum, even when English treats it as a mass noun
Pattern
-fy verbs become -fication nouns, with y becoming i
Pattern
-ation nouns from Latin -atio name an action or result
Pattern
ver- from Latin verus, true, as in verity and verdict
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
verification writes a c that verify never shows, because -fy becomes -fication

Spelled like

  • database
  • classification
  • notification
  • identification
Broken into chunks
  • data
    • datum
    • metadata
    • database
  • ver
    • verity
    • verify
    • verdict
  • fic
    • certificate
    • proficient
    • beneficial
  • ation
    • classification
    • notification
    • identification
What it sits beside

Same subject

Same shape

Data compounds

Verification compounds

  • identity verification
  • address verification
  • age verification

The -fication family

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