Digital Continuity Guarantee based on Data Consistency

Since the British National Archives put forward the concept of the digital continuity in 2007. A number of developed countries have developed their digital continuity action plan. Digital continuity has also become a hot spot in the research of electronic records. However, the technology and measures for the protection of the digital continuity are still lack. Data usability is the basis of a digital continuity, which focuses on making the digital information to be readable and operable. Data consistency is the basic requirement of data usability. If there is no data consistency, then there is no data availability. Therefore, to ensure the digital consistency of electronic record is the basis of digital continuity. The paper puts forward a framework based on functional dependency theory to verify the data consistency of electronic record. Moreover, an example of verifying the data consistency based on functional dependency theory is given to check periodically the data consistency of electronic record. Thus, the digital consistency of record is achieved.