Information

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Information is something that we can learn, know about, or understand. For example, a newspaper contains information about the world.

[change] Information in Computer Science

People who use computers often use the words information and data in the same way. In the 1970s and 1980s this was not enough anymore. At that time, the first computer databases were built. In computer science data often means a kind of information that has not been checked. That means data has not been changed or fixed, and you may not be able to trust it. Information means data that has been checked and passes tests for what it must be. A person can trust that "information" is correct.

Information can only be correct and good enough to trust if there is a very good and complete way to check the data (data verification) and decide it is good enough (acceptance process). A person must know rules were used to check the data or trust the person who checked the data. If a person cannot tell that this was done, the information still seems to be data for that person, so that person must check the data again.